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LOOKING  BACKWARD 


2000  —  1887 


EDWARD   BELLAMY 

Author  of  "  Miss  Lxidingtoii^s  Sister  "  ;   "  Dr.  Heidenhoff^s  Process  ' 
''A  Nantucket  Idyl,"   drc,   d:c. 


BOSTON 
TICKNOR    AND    COMPANY 

211  Crcmcnt  Street. 
1 888 


Copyright,  1888 
By  Ticknor  and  Company 


All  rights  reserved 


Press  of  J.  J.  Arakelyan, 

148    AND    150   PEARL    ST.,    BOSTON, 


7«.^, 

'XI  OP /A 

M3SL 

c.\ 

PREFACE 


Historical  Section  Shawmut  College,  Boston, 
December  28,  2000. 


Living  as  we  do  in  the  closing  year  of  the 
twentieth  century,  enjoying  the  blessings  of  a 
social  order  at  once  so  simple  and  logical  that 
it  seems  but  the  triumph  of  common  sense,  it 
is,  no  doubt,  difficult  for  those  whose  studies 
have  not  been  largely  historical  to  realize  that 
the  present  organization  of  society  is,  in  its 
completeness,  less  than  a  century  old.  No 
historical  fact  is,  however,  better  established 
than  that  till  nearly  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  it  was  the  general  belief  that  the 
ancient  industrial  system,  with  all  its  shock- 
ing social  consequences,  was  destined  to  last, 
with  possibly  a  litde  patching,  to  the  end  of 


IV  PREFACE. 

time.  How  strange  and  wellnigh  incredible 
does  it  seem  that  so  prodigious  a  moral  and 
m.aterial  transformation  as  has  taken  place 
since  then  could  have  been  accomplished  in 
so  brief  an  interval !  The  readiness  with 
which  men  accustom  themselves,  as  matters  of 
course,  to  improvem.ents  in  their  condition, 
which,  when  anticipated,  seemed  to  leave 
nothing  more  to  be  desired,  could  not  be  more 
strikingly  illustrated.  What  reflection  could 
be  better  calculated  to  m_oderate  the  enthusiasm 
of  reformers  who  count  for  their  reward  on 
the  livel}^  gratitude  of  future  ages  ! 

The  object  of  this  volume  is  to  assist  persons 
who,  while  desiring  to  gain  a  more  definite 
idea  of  the  social  contrasts  between  the  nine- 
teenth and  twentieth  centuries,  are  daunted  by 
the  formal  aspect  of  the  histories  which  treat 
the  subject.  Warned  by  a  teacher's  experience 
that  learning  is  accounted  a  weariness  to  the 
flesh,  the  author  has  sought  to  alleviate  the 
instructive  quality  of  the  book  by  casting  it  in 


PREFA  CE.  V 

the  form  of  a  romantic  narrative,  which  he 
would  be  glad  to  fancy  not  wholly  devoid  of 
interest  on  its  own  account. 

The  reader,  to  whom  modern  social  institu- 
tions and  their  underlying  principles  are  mat- 
ters of  course,  may  at  times  find  Dr.  Leete's 
explanations  of  them  rather  trite,  — but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  to  Dr.  Leete's  guest  they 
were  not  matters  of  course,  and  that  this  book 
is  written  for  the  express  purpose  of  inducing 
tlie  reader  to  forget  for  the  nonce  that  they  are 
so  to  him.  One  word  more.  The  almost 
universal  theme  of  the  writers  and  orators  who 
have  celebrated  this  bi-millenial  epoch  has 
been  the  future  rather  than  the  past,  not  the 
advance  that  has  been  made,  but  the  progress 
that  shall  be  made,  ever  onward  and  upward, 
till  the  race  shall  achieve  its  ineffable  destin}^ 
This  is  well,  wholly  well,  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  nowhere  can  we  find  more  solid  ground 
for  daring  anticipations  of  human  development 
during  the  next  one  thousand  years,  than  by 


Vi  PRE  FA  CE. 

"  Looking  Backward  "  upon  the  progress  of  the 
last  one  hundred. 

That  this  volume  may  be  so  fortunate  as  to 
find  readers  whose  interest  in  the  subject  shall 
incline  them  to  overlook  the  deficiencies  of  the 
treatment,  is  the  hope  in  which  the  author 
steps  aside  and  leaves  Mr.  Julian  West  to 
speak  for  himself. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  I, 


I  FIRST  saw  the  light  in  the  city  of  Boston 
in  the  year  1857.  "What!"  you  say, 
"eighteen  fifty-seven?  That  is  an  odd  slip. 
He  means  nineteen  fifty-seven,  of  course."  I 
beg  pardon,  but  there  is  no  mistake.  It  was 
about  four  in  the  afternoon  of  December  the 
26th,  one  day  after  Christmas,  in  the  year 
1857,  not  1957,  that  I  first  breathed  the  east 
wind  of  Boston,  which,  I  assure  the  reader, 
was  at  that  remote  period  marked  by  the. same 
penetrating  quality  characterizing  it  in  the 
present  3- ear  of  grace,  2000. 

These   statements  seem  so  absurd  on  their 
face,  especially  when  I  add  that  I  am  a  young 


8     •  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

man  apparently  of  about  thirty  years  of  age,  that 
no  person  can  be  blamed  for  refusing  to  read 
another  word  of  what  promises  to  be  a  mere 
imposition  upon  his  credulity.  Nevertheless  I 
earnestly  assure  the  reader  that  no  imposition 
is  intended,  and  will  undertake,  if  he  shall 
follow  me  a  few  pages,  to  entirely  convince  him 
of  this.  If  I  may,  then,  provisionally  assume, 
with  the  pledge  of  justifying  the  assumption, 
that  I  know  better  than  the  reader  w^hen  I  was 
born,  I  will  go  on  with  my  narrative.  As  every 
schoolboy  knows,  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  the  civilization  of  to-day, 
or  anything  like  it,  did  not  exist,  although  the 
elements  which  were  to  develop  it  were  already 
in  ferment.  Nothing  had,  however,  occurred 
to  modify  the  immemorial  division  of  society 
into  the  four  classes,  or  nations,  as  they  may 
be  more  fitl}^  called,  since  the  differences 
between  them,  were  far  greater  than  those  be- 
tween any  nations  nowadays,  of  the  rich  and 
the  poor,  the  educated    and  the  ignorant.     I 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  9 

myself  was  rich  and  also  educated,  and  pos- 
sessed, therefore,  all  the  elements  of  happiness 
enjoyed  by  the  most  fortunate  in  that  age. 
Living  in  luxury,  and  occupied  only  with  the 
pursuit  of  the  pleasures  and  refinements  of 
life,  I  derived  the  means  of  my  support  from 
the  labor  of  others,  rendering  no  sort  of  ser- 
vice in  return.  My  parents  and  grand-parents 
had  lived  in  the  same  way,  and  I  expected 
that  my  descendants,  if  I  had  any,  would 
enjoy  a  like  easy  existence. 

But  how  could  I  live  without  service  to  the 
world?  you  ask.  Why  should  the  world  have 
supported  in  utter  idleness  one  who  was  able 
to  render  service?  The  answer  is  that  my 
great-grandfather  had  accumulated  a  sum  of 
money  on  which  his  descendants  had  ever  since 
lived.  The  sum,  you  will  naturally  infer,  must 
have  been  very  large  not  to  have  been  ex- 
hausted in  supporting  three  generations  in  idle? 
ness.  This,  however,  was  not  the  fact.  The 
sum  had  been  originally  by  no  means  large. 


lO  LOOKING  BACKWARD 

It  was,  in  fact,  much  larger  now  that  three  gen- 
erations had  been  supported  upon  it  in  idle- 
ness, than  it  was  at  first.  This  mystery  of  use 
without  consumption,  of  warmth  without  com- 
bustion, seems  like  magic,  but  was  merely  an 
ingenious  application  of  the  art  now  happily 
lost  but  carried  to  great  perfection  by  your 
ancestors,  of  shifting  the  burden  of  one's  sup- 
port on  the  shoulders  of  others.  The  man 
who  had  accomplished  this,  and  it  was  the 
end  all  sought,  was  said  to  live  on  the  income 
of  his  investments.  To  explain  at  this  point 
how  the  ancient  methods  of  industry  made 
this  possible,  would  delay  us  too  much. 
I  shall  only  stop  now  to  say  that  interest  on 
investments  was  a  species  of  tax  in  perpetuity 
upon  the  product  of  those  engaged  in  industry 
W'hich  a  person  possessing  or  inheriting  money 
w^as  able  to  levy.  It  must  not  be  supposed 
that  an  arrangement  which  seems  so  unnatural 
and  preposterous  according  to  modern  notions 
was    never   criticized   by   your    ancestors.     It 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  H 

had  been  the  effort  of  lawgivers  and  prophets 
from  the  earliest  ages  to  abolish  interest,  or  at 
least  to  limit  it  to  the  smallest  possible  rate. 
All  these  efforts  had,  however,  failed,  as  they 
necessarily  must  so  long  as  the  ancient 
social  organizations  prevailed.  At  the  tune 
of  which  I  write,  the  latter  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  governments  had  generally 
given  up  trying  to  regulate  the  subject  at  alK 

By  way  of  attempdng  to  give  the  reader 
some  general  impression  of  the  way  people 
lived  together  in  those  days,  and  especially  of 
the  relations  of  the  rich  and  poor  to  one  another, 
perhaps  I  cannot  do  better  than  to  compare 
society  as  it  then  was  to  a  prodigious  coach 
which  the  masses  of  humanity  were  harnessed 
to  and  dragged  toilsomely  along  a  very  hilly 
and  sandy  road.  The  driver  was  hunger,  and 
permitted  no  lagging,  though  the  pace  was 
necessarily  very  slow.  Despite  the  difficulty 
of  drawing  the  coach  at  all  along  so  hard  a 
road,  the   top   was  covered   with   passengers 


12  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

who  never  got  down,  even  at  the  steepest 
ascents.  These  seats  on  top  were  very  breezy 
and  comfortable.  Well  up  out  of  the  dust, 
their  occupants  could  enjoy  the  scenery  at 
their  leisure,  or  critically  discuss  the  merits  of 
the  straining  team.  Naturally  such  places 
were  in  great  demand  and  the  competition  for 
them  was  keen,  every  one  seeking  as  the  first 
end  in  life  to  secure  a  seat  on  the  coach  for  him- 
self and  to  leave  it  to  his  child  after  him.  By 
the  rule  of  the  coach  a  man  could  leave  his 
seat  to  whom  he  wished,  but  on  the  other 
hand  there  were  many  accidents  by  which  it 
might  at  any  time  be  wholly  lost.  For  all 
that  they  were  so  easy,  the  seats  were  very 
insecure,  and  at  every  sudden  jolt  of  the  coach 
persons  were  slipping  out  of  them  and  falling 
to  the  ground,  where  they  were  instantly  com- 
pelled to  take  hold  of  the  rope  and  help  to 
drag  the  coach  on  which  they  had  before 
ridden  so  pleasantly.  It  was  naturally  re- 
garded  as  a  terrible  misfortune  to  lose  one's 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  1 3 

seat,  and  the  apprehension  that  this  might 
happen  to  them  or  their  friends  was  a  con- 
stant cloud  upon  the  happiness  of  those  who 
rode. 

But  did  they  think  only  of  themselves?  you 
ask.  Was  not  their  very  luxury  rendered 
intolerable  to  them  by  comparison  with  the  lot 
of  their  brothers  and  sisters  in  the  harness,  and 
the  knowledge  that  their  own  v/eight  added  to 
their  toil?  Had  they  no  compassion  for  fellow 
beings  from  whom  fortune  only  distinguished 
them  ?  Oh,  yes  ;  commiseration  was  frequently 
expressed  by  those  who  rode  for  those  who 
had  to  pull  the  coach,  especially  when  the 
vehicle  came  to  a  bad  place  in  the  road,  as 
it  was  constantly  doing,  or  to  a  particularly 
steep  hill.  At  such  times,  the  desperate  strain- 
ing of  the  team,  their  agonized  leaping  and 
plunging  under  the  pitiless  lashing  of  hun- 
ger, the  man}^  who  fainted  at  the  rope  and 
were  trampled  in  the  mire,  made  a  very  dis- 
tressing  spectacle,    which   often    called    forth 


14  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

highly  creditable  displays  of  feeling  on  the  top 
of  the  coach.  At  such  times  the  passengers 
would  call  down  encouraging!}-  to  the  toilers 
of  the  rope,  exhorting  them  to  patience,  and 
holding  out  hopes  of  possible  compensation  in 
another  world  for  the  hardness  of  their  lot, 
while  others  contributed  to  buy  salves  and 
liniments  for  the  crippled  and  injured.  It  was 
agreed  that  it  was  a  great  pity  that  the  coacli 
should  be  so  hard  to  pull,  and  there  was  a 
sense  of  general  relief  when  the  specially  bad 
piece  of  road  was  gotten  over.  This  relief  was 
not,  indeed,  wholly  on  account  of  the  team,  for 
there  was  always  some  danger  at  these  bad 
places  of  a  general  overturn  in  which  all 
would  lose  their  seats. 

It  must  in  truth  be  admitted  that  the  main 
effect  of  the  spectacle  of  the  misery  of  the  toil- 
ers at  the  rope  was  to  enhance  the  passengers' 
sense  of  the  value  of  their  seats  upon  the  coach, 
and  to  cause  them  to  hold  on  to  them  more 
desperately   than    before.     If  the   passengers 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1$ 

could  only  have  felt  assured  that  neither  they 
nor  their  friends  would  ever  fall  from  the  top, 
it  is  probable  that,  beyond  contributing,  to  the 
funds  for  liniments  and  bandages,  they  would 
have  troubled  themselves  extremely  little  about 
those  who  dragged  the  coach. 

I  am  well  aware  that  this  will  appear  to  the 
men  and  women  of  the  twentieth  century  an 
incredible  inhumanity,  but  there  are  two  facts, 
both  very  curious,  which  partly  explain  it.  In 
the  first  place,  it  was  firmly  and  sincerely  be- 
lieved that  there  was  no  other  way  in  which 
Society  could  get  along,  except  the  many 
pulled  at  the  rope  and  the  few  rode,  and  not 
only  this,  but  that  no  very  radical  improvement 
even  was  possible,  either  in  the  harness,  the 
coach,  the  roadway,  or  the  distribution  of 
the  toil.  It  had  always  been  as  it  was,  and  it 
always  would  be  so.  It  was  a  pity,  but  it 
could  not  be  helped,  and  philosophy  forbade 
wasting  compassion  on  what  was  beyond 
remedy. 


1 6  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

The  other  fact  is  yet  more  curious,  consist- 
ing in  a  singular  hallucination  which  those 
on  the  top  of  the  coach  generally  shared,  that 
they  were  not  exactly  like  their  brothers  and 
sisters  who  pulled  at  the  rope,  but  of  finer  clay, 
in  some  way  belonging  to  a  higher  order  of 
beings  who  might  justly  expect  to  be  drawn. 
This  seems  unaccountable,  but,  as  I  once  rode 
on  this  very  coach  and  shared  that  very  hallu- 
cination, I  ought  to  be  believed.  The  strang- 
est thing  about  the  hallucination  was  that  those 
who  had  but  just  climbed  up  from  the  ground, 
before  they  had  outgrown  the  marks  of  the  rope 
upon  their  hands,  began  to  fall  under  its  influ- 
ence. As  for  those  Vvhose  parents  and  grand- 
parents before  them  had  been  so  fortunate  as 
to  keep  their  seats  on  the  top,  the  convic- 
tion they  cherished  of  the  essential  diff'erence 
between  their  sort  of  humanity  and  the  com- 
mon article,  was  absolute.  The  eflfect  of  such 
a  delusion  in  moderating  fellow  feeling  for  the 
sufferings  of  the  mass  of  men  into  a  distant  and 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 7 

philosophical  compassion,  is  obvious.  To  it  I 
refer  as  the  only  extenuation  I  can  offer  for  the 
indifference  which,  at  the  period  I  write  of, 
marked  my  own  attitude  toward  the  misery  of 
my  brothers. 

In  1887  I  came  to  my  thirtieth  year.  Al- 
though still  unmarried,  I  w^as  engaged  to  wed 
Edith  Bartlett.  She,  like  myself,  rode  on  the 
top  of  the  coach.  That  is  to  say,  not  to  en- 
cumber ourselves  further  with  an  illustration 
which  has,  I  hope,  served  its  purpose  of  giv- 
ing the  reader  some  general  impression  of  how 
we  lived  then,  her  family  was  w^ealthy.  In 
that  age,  when  money  alone  commanded  all 
that  was  agreeable  and  refined  in  life,  it  was 
enouorh  for  a  woman  to  be  rich  to  have  suitors  ; 
but  Edith  Bartlett  was  beautiful  and  graceful 
also. 

My  lady  readers,  I  am  aware,  will  protest 
at  this.  "  Handsome  she  might  have  been,"  I 
hear  them  saying,  ''  but  graceful  never,  in  the 
costumes  which  were  the  fashion  at  that  period, 


l8  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

when  the  head  covering  was  a  dizzy  structure 
a  foot  tall,  and  the  almost  incredible  extension 
of  the  skirt  behind  by  means  of  artificial  con- 
trivances, more  thoroughly  dehumanized  the 
form  than  any  former  device  of  dressmakers. 
Fancy  an}^  one  graceful  in  such  a  costume  ! " 
The  point  is  certainly  well  taken,  and  I  can 
only  reply  that  while  the  ladies  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  are  lovely  demonstrations  of  the 
effect  of  appropriate  drapery  in  accenting 
feminine  graces,  my  recollection  of  their  great 
grandmothers,  enables  me  to  maintain  that  no 
deformity  of  costume  can  wholly  disguise 
them. 

Our  marriage  only  waited  on  the  comple- 
tion of  the  house  which  I  was  building  for 
our  occupancy  in  one  of  the  most  desirable 
parts  of  the  city,  that  is  to  say,  a  part  chiefly 
inhabited  by  the  rich.  For  it  must  be  un- 
derstood that  the  comparative  desirability  of 
different  parts  of  Boston  for  residence  depend- 
ed  then,  not  on  natural    features    but  on  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 9 

character  of  the  neighboring  population.  Each 
class  or  nation  lived  by  itself,  in  quarters  of 
its  own.  A  rich  man  living  among  the  poor, 
an  educated  man  among  the  uneducated,  was 
like  one  living  in  isolation  among  a  jealous 
and  alien  race.  When  the  house  had  been 
begun,  its  completion  by  the  winter  of  1886 
had  been  expected.  The  spring  of  the  follow- 
ing year  found  it,  however,  yet  incomplete,  and 
my  marriage  still  a  thing  of  the  future.  The 
cause  of  a  delay  calculated  to  be  particularly 
exasperating  to  an  ardent  lover,  was  a  series 
of  strikes,  that  is  to  say,  concerted  refusals  to 
work  on  the  part  of  the  brick-layers,  masons, 
carpenters,  painters,  plumbers,  and  other  trades 
concerned  in  house  building.  What  the  spe- 
cific causes  of  these  strikes  were  I  do  not 
remember.  Strikes  had  become  so  com- 
mon at  that  period  that  people  had  ceased 
to  inquire  into  their  particular  grounds.  In 
one  department  of  industry  or  another,  they 
had  been  nearly  incessant  ever  since  the  great 


20  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

business  crisis  of  1873.  In  fact  it  had  come  to 
be  the  exceptional  thing  to  see  any  class  of 
laborers  pursue  their  avocation  steadily  for 
more  than  a  few  months  at  a  time. 

The  reader  who  observes  the  dates  alluded 
to  will  of  course  recognize  in  these  disturbances 
of  industry  the  first  and  incoherent  phase  of 
the  great  movement  which  ended  in  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  modern  industrial  system 
with  all  its  social  consequences.  This  is  all 
so  plain  in  the  retrospect  that  a  child  can 
understand  it,  but  not  being  prophets,  we  of 
that  day  had  no  clear  idea  what  was  happen- 
inp;  to  us.  What  we  did  see  was  that  indus- 
trially  the  country  was  in  a  very  queer  way. 
The  relation  between  the  workingman  and 
the  employer,  between  labor  and  capital,  ap- 
peared in  some  unaccountable  manner  to 
have  become  dislocated.  The  working  classes 
had  quite  suddenly  and  very  generally  be- 
come infected  with  a  profound  discontent  with 
tlieir  condition,   and  an  idea  that  it  could  be 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  21 

greatly  bettered  if  they  only  knew  liow  to  go 
about  it.     On  every   side,    with    one    accord, 
the}^  preferred  demands  for  higher  pay,  shorter 
hours,    better    dwellings,    better    educational 
advantages,   and  a  share    in    the    refinements 
and  luxuries    of  life,  demands  which   it  was 
impossible  to  see  the  way  to  granting  unless 
the    world    were    to    become    a    great    deal 
richer  than  it  then  was.     Though  they  knew 
something  of  Vviiat  they  vv^anted,  they    knew 
nothing  of  how  to  accomplish  it,  and  the  eager 
enthusiasm  with  which    they  thronged    about 
any  one  who  seemed  likely  to  give  them  any 
light  on    the    subject   lent    sudden    reputation 
to  many  would-be  leaders,  some  of  whom  liad 
little    enough    light    to    give.     However    chi- 
merical the  aspirations  of  the  laboring  classes 
might   be    deemed,  the    devotion  with    v/hich 
they  supported    one    another    in    the    strikes, 
which  v;ere  their  chief  weapon,  and  the  sac- 
rifices which  they  underwent  to  carry  them  oat 
left  no  doubt  of  their  dead  earnestness. 


22  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

As  to  the  final  outcome  of  the  labor  troubles, 
which  was  the  phrase  by  which  the  movement 
I  have  described  was  most  commonly  referred 
to,  the  opinions  of  the  people  of  my  class 
differed  according  to  individual  temperament. 
The  sanguine  argued  very  forcibl\-  that  it  was 
in  the  very  nature  of  things  impossible  that 
the  new  liopes  of  the  workingmc^n  could  be 
satisfied,  simply  because  the  world  had  not  the 
wherewithal  to  satisfy  them.  It  was  only 
because  the  masses  worked  very  hard  and 
lived  on  short  commons  that  the  race  did 
not  starve  outright,  and  no  considerable  im- 
provement in  their  condition  was  poss'ble 
while  the  world,  as  a  whole,  remained  so  poor. 
It  was  not  the  capitalists  whom  tlie  laboring- 
men  were  contending  with,  tlicse  maintained, 
but  the  iron-bound  environment  oC  humanity, 
and  it  was  merely  a  question  of  the  thickness 
of  their  skulls  when  they  would  discover  tlie 
fact  and  make  up  their  minds  to  endure 
what  thev  could  not  cure. 


LOOKING  ^BACKWARD.  1% 

The  less  sanguine  admitted  all  this.  Of 
course  the  workingmen's  aspirations  were  im- 
possible of  fulfilment  for  natural  reasons,  but 
there  were  grounds  to  fear  that  they  would  not 
discover  this  fact  until  they  had  made  a  sad 
mess  of  society.  They  had  the  votes  and 
the  power  to  do  so  if  they  pleased,  and  their 
leaders  meant  they  should.  Some  of  these 
desponding  observers  went  so  far  as  to  predict 
an  impending  social  cataclysm.  Humanity, 
they  argued,  having  climbed  to  the  top  round  of 
the  ladder  of  civilization,  was  about  to  take  a 
header  into  chaos,  after  which  it  would  doubtless 
pick  itself  up,  turn  round,  and  begin  to  climb 
again.  Repeated  experiences  of  this  sort  in 
historic  and  prehistoric  times  possibly  ac- 
counted for  the  puzzling  bumps  on  the  human 
cranium.  Human  history,  like  all  great  move- 
ments, was  cyclical,  and  returned  to  the  point 
of  beginning.  The  idea  of  indefinite  progress 
in  a  right  line  was  a  chimera  of  the  imagina- 
tion, with  no  analogue  in  nature.     The  para- 


^4  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

bola  of  a  comet  was  perhaps  a  yet  better  illus- 
tration of  the  career  of  humanity.  Tendinr^ 
upward  and  sunward  from  the  apheHon  of 
barbarism,  the  race  attained  the  perihelion  of 
civilization  only  to  plunge  downward  once 
more  to  its  nether  goal  in  the  regions  of 
chaos. 

This,  of  course,  was  an  extreme  opinion, 
but  I  remember  serious  men  among  my  ac- 
quaintances who,  in  discussing  the  signs  of 
the  times,  adopted  a  very  similar  tone.  It  was 
no  doubt  the  common  opinion  of  thoughtful 
men  that  society  was  approaching  a  critical 
period  which  might  result  in  great  changes. 
The  labor  troubles,  their  causes,  course,  and 
cure,  took  lead  of  all  other  topics  in  the  public 
prints,  and  in  serious  conversation. 

The  nervous  tension  of  the  public  mind  could 
not  have  been  more  strikingly  illustrated  thrm 
it  was  by  the  alarm  resulting  from  the  talk  of 
a  small  band  of  men  who  called  themselves 
anarchists,  isnd  proposed  to  terrify  the  Ameri- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  2 5 

can  people  into  adopting  their  ideas  b}'  threats 
of  violence,  as  if  a  mighty  nation  which  had 
but  jus.t  put  down  a  rebellion  of  half  its  own 
numbers,  in  order  to  maintain  its  political  sys- 
tem, were  likely  to  adopt  a  new  social  system 
out  of  fear. 

As  one  of  the  wealthy,  with  a  large  stake 
in  the  existing  order  of  things,  I  naturally 
shared  the  apprehensions  of  my  class.  The 
particular  grievance  I  had  against  the  working 
classes  at  the  time  of  which  I  write,  on  account 
of  the  efl'ect  of  their  strikes  in  postponing  m.y 
wedded  bliss,  no  doubt  lent  a  special  animosity 
to  my  feeling  toward  them. 


26  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER   II. 

T^HE  thirtieth  da}-  of  May,  1887,  fell  on  a 
■^  Monday.  It  was  one  of  the  annual 
hoHdays  of  the  nation  in  the  latter  third  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  being  set  apart  under  the 
name  of  Decoration  Day,  for  doing  honor  to 
llie  memory  of  the  soldiers  of  the  north  who 
took  part  in  the  war  for  the  preservation  of  the 
union  of  the  States.  The  survivors  of  the 
war,  escorted  by  military  and  civic  processions 
and  bands  of  music,  were  wont  on  this  occa- 
.sion  to  visit  the  cemeteries  and  lay  wreaths  of 
Cowers  upon  the  graves  of  their  dead  comrades, 
the  ceremony  being  a  very  solemn  and  toucli- 
m^r  one.  The  eldest  brother  of  Edith  Bartlett 
\ycA  fallen  in  the  war,  and  on  Decoration  Day 
l!ie  family  was  in  the  habit  of  making  a  visit 
U)  Mount  Auburn,  where  he  lay. 

I  had  asked  permission  to  make  one  of  the 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  27 

party,  and,  on  our  return  to  the  city  at  night- 
fall, remained  to  dine  with  the  family  of  my 
betrothed.  In  the  drawing-room,  after  dinner, 
I  picked  up  an  evening  paper  and  read  of  a 
fresh  strike  in  the  building  trades,  which  would 
probably  still  further  delay  the  completion  of 
my  unlucky  house.  I  remember  distinctly 
how  exasperated  I  was  at  this,  and  the  objur- 
gations, as  Ibrcible  as  the  presence  of  the  ladies 
permitted,  which  I  lavished  upon  workmen  in 
general,  and  these  strikers  in  particular.  I 
had  abundant  sympathy  from  those  about  me, 
and  the  remarks  made  in  the  desultory  conver- 
sation which  followed,  upon  the  unprincipled 
conduct  of  the  labor  agitators,  were  calculated 
to  make  those  gentlemen's  ears  tingle.  It  was 
agreed  that  affairs  were  going  from  bad  to 
worse  very  fast,  and  that  there  was  no  tell- 
ing what  we  should  come  to  soon.  "The 
worst  of  it,''  I  remember  Mrs.  Bartlett's  say- 
ing, "is  that  the  ^vorking  classes  all  over  the 
world  seem   to   be   going  crazy  at  once.     In 


28  LOOKING   BACKWARD, 

Europe  it  is  far  worse  even  than  here.  I'm 
sure  I  should  not  dare  to  live  there  at  all.  I 
asked  Mr.  Bartlett  the  other  day  where  we 
should  emigrate  to  if  all  the  terrible  things 
took  place  which  those  socialists  threaten.  He 
said  he  did  not  know  any  place  now  where 
society  could  be  called  stable  except  Green- 
land, Patagonia,  and  the  Chinese  Empire." 
"  Those  Chinamen  knew  what  they  were  about," 
somebody  added,  "  when  they  refused  to  let  in 
our  western  civilization.  They  knew  what  it 
would  lead  to  better  than  we  did.  They  saw 
it  was  nothing  but  dynamite  in  disguise." 

After  this,  I  remember  drawing  Edith  apart 
and  trying  to  persuade  her  that  it  would  be 
better  to  be  married  at  once  without  waiting 
for  the  completion  of  the  house,  spending  the 
time  in  travel  till  our  home  was  ready  for  us. 
She  was  remarkably  handsome  that  evening, 
the  mourning  costume  that  she  wore  in  recog- 
nition of  the  day,  setting  off  to  great  advan- 
tage the  purity  of  her  complexion.     I  can  see 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  29 

her  even  now  with  my  mind's  eye  just  as  she 
looked  that  nigb.t.  When  I  took  my  leave 
slic  followed  mc  into  the  hall  and  I  kissed  her 
good-bj'e  as  usual.  There  \\:is  no  circum- 
stance out  of  the  common  to  distinguish  this 
parting  from  previous  occasions  when  we  had 
b;;de  each  other  good-bye  for  a  night  or  a  day. 
There  was  absolutely  no  premonition  in  my 
mind,  or  I  am  sure  in  hers,  that  this  was  more 
than  an  ordinar}'  separation. 

Ah,  well! 

The  hour  at  which  I  had  left  my  betrothed 
was  a  rather  early  one  for  a  lover,  but  the 
tact  was  no  reflection  on  my  devotion.  I  was 
a  confirmed  sufferer  from  insomnia,  and  al- 
though otherwise  perfectly  well  had  been 
completely  fagged  out  that  day,  from  having 
slept  scarcel}'  at  all  the  two  previous  nights. 
Edith  knew  this  and  had  insisted  on  sending 
me  home  by  nine  o'clock,  v\ath  strict  orders 
to  go  to  bed  at  once. 

The  house  in  which  I  lived    had  been  oc- 


30  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

cupied  b\'  three  generations  of  the  family  of 
whicli  I  was  the  only  living  representative^ 
in  the  direct  line.  It  was  a  large,  ancient 
wooden  mansion,  very  elegant  in  an  old- 
fashioned  way  within,  but  situated  in  a  quar- 
ter that  had  long  since  become  undesirable 
for  residence,  from  its  invasion  by  tenement 
houses  and  manufactories.  It  was  not  a  house 
to  which  I  could  think  of  bringing  a  bride, 
much  less  so  dainty  a  one  as  Edith  Bartlett. 
I  had  advertised  it  for  sale  and  meanwhile 
merely  used  it  for  sleeping  purposes,  dining 
at  my  club.  One  servant,  a  faithful  colored 
man  by  the  name  of  Sawyer,  lived  with  me 
and  attended  to  my  few  wants.  One  feature  of 
the  house  I  expected  to  miss  greatly  when  I 
should  leave  it,  and  this  was  the  sleeping 
chamber  w^hich  I  had  built  under  the  founda- 
tions. I  could  not  have  slept  in  the  city 
at  all,  with  its  never  ceasing  nightly  noises, 
if  I  had  been  obliged  to  use  an  upstairs  cham- 
ber.    But  to  this  subterranean  room  no  mur- 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  3 1 

mur  from  the  upper  world  ever  penetrated. 
When  I  had  entered  it  and  closed  the  door, 
I  was  surrounded  by  the  silence  ot'  the  tomb. 
In  order  to  prevent  the  dampness  of  the 
subsoil  from  penetrating  the  chamber,  tlie 
walls  had  been  laid  in  hydraulic  cement  and 
were  very  thick,  and  the  floor  w^as  likewise 
protected.  In  order  that  the  room  might  serve 
also  as  a  vault  equally  proof  against  violence 
and  flames,  lor  the  storage  of  valuables,  I 
had  roofed  it  with  stone  slabs  hermeticallv 
sealed,  and  the  outer  door  was  of  Iron  with  a 
thick  coating  of  asbestos.  A  small  pipe,  com- 
municating with  a  wind-mill  on  the  top  of  the 
house,  insured  the  renewal  of  air. 

It  might  seem  that  the  tenant  of  such  a 
chamber  ought  to  be  able  to  command  slum- 
ber, but  it  was  rare  that  I  slept  well,  even 
there,  two  nights  in  succession.  So  accustomed 
w^as  I  to  wakefulness  that  I  minded  little  the 
loss  of  one  night's  rest,  A  second  night,  how- 
ever, spent  in  my  reading  chair  instead  of  my 


32  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

bed,  tired  me  out,  and  I  never  allowed  my- 
self to  go  longer  than  that  without  slumber, 
from  fear  of  nervous  disorder.  From  this 
statement  it  will  be  inferred  that  I  had  at  my 
command  some  artificial  means  for  inducing 
sleep  in  the  last  resort,  and  so  in  fact  I  liad. 
If  after  two  sleepless  nights  I  found  myself  on 
the  approach  of  the  third  without  sensations 
of  drowsiness,  I  called  in  Dr.  Piilsbury. 

He  was  a  doctor  by  courtesy  only,  w4iat 
v/as  called  in  those  days  an  "irregular"  or 
"  quack  "  doctor.  He  called  himself  a  "  Pro- 
fessor of  Animal  Magnetism."  I  had  come 
across  him  in  the  course  of  some  amateur 
investigations  into  the  phenomena  of  animal 
magnetism.  I  don't  think  he  knew  anything 
about  medicine,  but  he  was  certainly  a  re- 
markable mesmerist.  It  Vvas  for  the  purpose 
of  being  put  to  sleep  b}^  his  manipulations  that 
I  used  to  send  for  him  when  I  found  a  third 
night  of  sleeplessness  impending.  Let  my 
nervous  excitement   or   mental   preoccupation 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  33 

be  however  great,  Dr.  Pillsbur}^  never  failed, 
after  a  short  time,  to  leave  me  in  a  deep  slum- 
ber, which  continued  till  I  vvas  aroused  by  a 
reversal  of  the  mesmerizing  process.  The 
process  for  awaking  the  sleeper  v^^as  much  sim- 
pler than  that  for  putting  him  to  sleep,  and  for 
convenience  I  had  made  Dr.  Pillsbury  teach 
Sawyer  how  to  do  it. 

My  faithful  servant  alone  knew  for  what 
purpose  Dr.  Pillsbury  visited  me,  or  that  he 
did  so  at  all.  Of  course,  when  Edith  became 
my  wife  I  should  have  to  tell  her  my  secrets. 
I  had  not  hitherto  told  her  this,  because  there 
was  unquestionably  a  slight  risk  in  the  mes- 
meric sleep,  and  I  knew  she  would  set  her 
face  against  my  practice.  The  risk,  of  course, 
was  that  It  might  become  too  profound 
and  pass  into  a  trance  beyond  the  mesmer- 
izer's  power  to  break,  ending  in  death.  Re- 
pealed experiments  had  fully  convinced  me 
that  the  risk  was  next  to  nothing  if  rea- 
sonable precautions   were   exercised^   and   of 


34  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

this  I  hoped,  though  doubtingly,  to  convince 
Edith.  I  went  directly  home  after  leavin<x  her 
and  at  once  sent  Sawyer  to  fetch  Dr.  Pillsburv. 
Meanwhile  I  sought  my  subterranean  sleeping- 
chamber,  and  exchanging  my  costume  tor  a 
comfortable  dressing-gown,  sat  do\\  n  to  read 
the  letters  b}'  the  evening  mail  which  Sawj'er 
had  laid  on  my  reading  table. 

One  of  them  was  from  the  builder  of  my 
new  house,  and  contirmed  what  I  liad  inferred 
from  the  newspaper  item.  The  new  strikes, 
he  said,  had  postponed  indefinitely  the  com- 
pletion of  the  contract,  as  neither  masters  nor 
workmen  would  concede  the  point  at  issue 
without  a  long  struggle.  Caligula  wished 
that  the  Roman  people  had  but  one  neck  that 
he  might  cut  it  ofl\  and  as  I  read  this  letter  I 
am  afraid  that  for  a  moment  I  was  capable  of 
wishing  the  same  thing  concerning  the  labor- 
ins^  classes  of  America.  The  return  oi  Saw- 
yer  with  the  doctor  interrupted  my  gloomy 
meditations. 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  35 

It  appeared  that  he  had  with  difficuhy  been 
able  to  secure  his  services,  as  he  was  prepar- 
ing to  leave  the  city  that  very  night.  The 
doctor  explained  that  since  he  had  seen  me 
last  he  had  learned  of  a  fine  professional  open- 
ing in  a  distant  city,  and  decided  to  take 
prompt  advantage  of  it.  On  my  asking,  in 
some  panic,  w^hat  I  was  to  do  for  some  one  to 
j)ut  me  to  sleep,  he  gave  me  the  names  of 
several  mesmerizers  in  Boston  who,  he  averred, 
had  quite  as  great  powers  as  he. 

Somewhat  relieved  on  this  point,  I  instructed 
Sawyer  to  rouse  me  at  nine  o'clock  next  morn- 
ing, and,  lying  down  on  the  bed  in  my  dress- 
ing gown,  assumed  a  comfortable  attitude,  and 
surrendered  myself  to  the  manipulations  of  the 
mesmerizer.  Owing,  perhaps,  to  my  unusu- 
ally nervous  state,  I  was  slower  than  common 
in  losing  consciousness,  but  at  length  a  deli- 
cious drowsiness  stole  over  me. 


^6  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER   III. 

'  T  T^  i^   going   to  open  his  eyes.     He  had 

•^  -^     better  see  but  one  of  us  at  first." 

"Promise  me,  then,  that  you  will  not  tell 
him." 

The  first  voice  was  a  man's,  the  second  a 
woman's,  and  both  spoke  in  v/hispers. 

^' I  will  see  how  he  seems,"  replied  the  man. 

"No,  no,  promise  me,"  persisted  the  other. 

''Let  her  have  her  way,"  whispered  a  third 
voice,  also  a  woman. 

"Well,  well,  I  promise,  then,"  answered  the 
man.     "  Q^:ick,  go  I     Pie  is  coming  out  of  it." 

There  was  a  rustle  of  garments  and  I  opened 
iT!}^  eyes.  A  line  looking  man  of  perhaps  sixty 
was  bending  over  me,  an  expression  of  much 
benevolence  mingled  with  great  curiosity  upon 
his  features.  He  was  an  utter  stranger.  I 
raised  mvself  on  an  elbow  and  looked  around. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  37 

The  room  was  empty.  I  certainly  had 
never  been  in  it  before,  or  one  furnished  Hke 
it.  I  looked  back  at  my  companion.  He 
smiled. 

"How  do  3''ou  feel?"  he  inquired. 
.   "Where  am  I?"  I  demanded. 

"  You  are  in  my  house,"  was  the  reply. 

"How  came  I  here?" 

"We  will  talk  about  that  when  you  are 
stronger.  Meanwhile,  I  beg  you  will  feel  no 
anxiety.  You  are.  among  friends  and  in  good 
hands.     How  do  you  feel?" 

"A  bit  queerly,"  I  replied,  "but  I  am  well, 
I  suppose.  Will  you  tell  me  how  I  came  to 
be  indebted  to  your  hospitality?  What  has 
happened  to  me?  How  came  I  here?  It  was 
in  my  own  house  that  I  went  to  sleep." 

"There  will  be  time  enough  for  explanations 
later,"  my  unknown  host  replied,  with  a  reas- 
suring smile.  "It  Vv'ill  be  better  to  avoid  agi- 
tating talk  until  you  are  a  little  more  yourself. 
Will  you  oblige  me  by  taking  a  couple  of  swal- 


38  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

lows  of  this  mixture?  It  will  do  you  good.  I 
am  a  physician." 

I  repellv-'d  the  gla^s  with  my  hand  and  sat 
up  on  the  couch,  although  with  an  etlbrt,  tor 
my  head  was  stnmgely  light. 

"I  insist  upon  knowing  at  once  where  I  am 
and  what  you  have  been  doing  with  mc,"  I 
said. 

"'  My  dear  sir,'*  responded  m}'  companion, 
"let  me  beg  that  you  will  not  agitate  yourself. 
I  would  rather  you  did  not  insist  upon  expla- 
nations so  soon,  but  if  you  do,  I  will  try  to 
satisfy  you,  provided  you  will  first  take  this 
draught,  which  will  strengthen  you  somewhat." 

I  thereupon  drank  what  he  offered  me. 
Then  he  said,  "It  is  not  so  simple  a  matter  as 
you  evidently  suppose  to  tell  you  how^  you 
came  here.  You  can  tell  me  quite  as  much 
on  that  point  as  I  can  tell  you.  You  have  just 
been  roused  from  a  deep  sleep,  or,  more  pro- 
perly, trance.  So  much  I  can  tell  you.  You 
say  you  wt^re  in  your  own  house  when  you  fell 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  39 

into  that  sleep.  May  I  ask  you  when  that 
v.as?" 

"V/hen?"  I  repHed,  "when?  Why,  Last 
evening,  of  course,  at  about  ten  o'clock. 
1  left  my  man  Sawyer  orders  to  call  me 
at  nine  o'clock.  What  has  become  of  Saw- 
yer?" 

"I  can't  precisely  tell  you  that,"  repHed  my 
companion,  regarding  me  with  a  curious  ex- 
pression, "but  I  am  sure  that  he  is  excusable 
for  not  being  here.  x\nd  now  can  you  tell  me 
a  litde  more  explicitly  when  it  was  that  you  fell 
into  that  sleep,  the  date,  I  mean?" 

"W^hy,  last  night,  of  course  ;  I  said  so,  didn't 
I?  that  is,  unless  I  have  overslept  an  entire 
day.  Great  heavens  !  that  cannot  be  possible  ; 
and  vet  I  have  an  odd  sensation  of  having 
blept  a  long  time.  It  was  Decoradon  Day  ihat 
I  went  to  sleep." 

"  Decoration  Day  ?  " 

"Yes,  Monday,  the  30th." 

*■  Pardon  me,  the  30th  of  what?" 


40  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

"Why,  of  this  month,  of  course,  unless  I 
have  slept  into  June,  but  that  can't  be." 

"This  month  is  September." 

"  September !  You  don't  mean  that  I've 
slept  since  May  !  God  in  heaven  !  Why,  it  is 
incredible." 

"We  shall  see,"  replied  my  companion; 
"  you  say  that  it  was  May  30th  when  you  went 
to  sleep?"  .. . 

"Yes." 

"  May  I  ask  of  what  year?  " 

I  stared  blankly  at  him,  incapable  of  speech, 
for  some  moments. 

"Of  what  year?"  I  t'eebly  echoed  at  last. 

"Yes,  of  what  year,  if  you  please?  After 
you  have  told  m.e  that  I  shall  be  able  to  tell 
you  how  long  you  have  slept." 

"It  was  the  year  1887,"  I  said. 

My  companion  insisted  that  I  should  take 
iinother  draught  from  the  glass,  and  felt  my 
pulse. 

"My  dear  sir,"  he  said,  "your  manner  indi- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  4I 

cates  that  you  are  a  man  of  culture,  which  I 
am  aware  was  by  no  means  the  matter  of  course 
in  your  day  it  now  is.  No  doubt,  then,  you 
have  yourself  made  the  observation  that  noth- 
ing in  this  world  can  be  truly  said  to  be  more 
wonderful  than  anything  else.  The  causes  of 
all  phenomena  are  equally  adequate,  and  the 
results  equally  matters  of  course.  That  you 
should  be  startled  by  what  I  shall  tell  you,  is  to 
be  expected  ;  but  I  am  confident  that  you  will 
not  permit  it  to  affect  your  equanimity  unduly. 
Your  appearance  is  that  of  a  young  man  of 
barely  thirty,  and  your  bodily  condition  seems 
not  greatly  different  from  that  of  one  just  roused 
from  a  som.ewhat  too  long  and  profound  sleep, 
and  yet  this  is  the  tenth  day  of  Septem.ber  in 
the  year  2000,  and  you  have  slept  exactly  one 
hundred  and  thirteen  3^ears,  three  months,  and 
eleven  days." 

Peeling  partially  dazed  I  drank  a  cup 
of  some  sort  of  broth  at  m}'  companion's 
suggestion,    and,    immediately    afterward    be- 


42  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

coming  very  drov/sy,  went  off  into  a  deep 
sleep. 

When  I  awoke  it  was  broad  daylight  in  the 
room,  which  had  been  lighted  artificial!}'  when  I 
was  awake  before.  My  mysterious  host  was  sit- 
ting near.  He  was  not  looking  at  me  when  I 
opened  my  eyes,  and  I  liad  a  good  opportunity 
to  study  him  and  meditate  upon  mv  extraordi- 
nary situation,  before  lie  observed  that  I  was 
awake.  My  giddiness  was  all  gone,  and  my 
mind  perfect]}-  clear.  The  story  that  I  had 
been  asleep  one  hundred  and  thirteen  years, 
which,  in  my  former  weak  and  bewildered  con- 
dition, I  had  accepted  without  question,  re- 
curred to  me  now  only  to  be  rejected  as  a  pre- 
posterous attempt  at  an  imposture,  the  motive 
of  wliich  it  was  impossible  remotely  to  surmise. 

Something  extraordinary  had  certainly  hap- 
pened to  account  for  my  waking  up  in  this 
strange  house  \vith  this  unknown  companion, 
but  my  fancy  was  utterly  impotent  to  sug- 
gest  more  than   tlie  wildest  guess   as   to  what 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  43 

that   something    miglit    have    been.     Could  it 
be   that  I  was  the  victim  of  some  sort  of  con- 
spiracy ?     It  looked  so,  certainly;    and  vet,  if 
human  lineaments  ever  gave  true  evidence,  it 
was   certain   that   this  man  by  my  side,  with  a 
face  so  reiined  and  ingenuous,  was  no  party  to 
any   scheme   of  crime  or   outrage.      Then    it 
occurred  to  me  to  question  if  I  might  not  be  the 
butt  of  some   elaborate   practical  joke  on  the 
part  of  friends  who  had  somehow  learned  the 
secret  of  my  underground  chamber  and  taken 
this  means  of  impressing  me  w^ith  the  peril  of 
mesmeric  experiments.     There  were  great  dif- 
ficulties  in    the  way   of  this   theory  ;    Sawyer 
would   never  have  betrayed  me,  nor  had  I  any 
friends  at  all  likely  to  undertake  such  an  enter- 
prise ;   nevertheless  the  supposition  that  I  was 
the  victim  of  a  practical  joke  seemed  on  the 
Vvhole  the  only  one.  tenable.     Half  expecting  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  some  fLimiliar  face  grinning 
from  behind  a  chair  or  curtain,  I  looked   care- 
fully about  the   room.     When  my   eyes   next 


44  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

rested  on  m}'  companion,  he  was  looking  at 
me. 

"You  have  had  a  fine  nap  of  twelve  hours, 
he  said  briskly,  "  and  I  can  see  that  it  has  done 
you  good.  You  look  much  better.  Your  color 
is  good  and  your  eyes  are  bright.  How  do 
you  feel?" 

''  I  never  felt  better,''  I  said,  sitting  up. 

"You  remember  your  first  waking,  no  doubt," 
he  pursued,  "and  your  surprise  when  I  told 
you  how  long  you  had  been  asleep?  " 

"You  said,  I  believe,  that  I  had  slept  one 
hundred  and  thirteen  years." 

"Exactly." 

"You  W'ill  adm.it,"  I  said,  with  an  ironical 
smile,  "  that  the  story  wt.s  rather  an  improbable 
one."  "  Extraordinary,  I  admit,"  he  responded, 
"but  given  the  proper  condidons,  not  improba- 
ble nor  inconsistent  with  Vvhat  we  knov\'  of  the 
trance  state.  When  complete,  as  in  your  case, 
the  vital  functions  are  absolutely  suspended, 
and  there  is  no  waste  of  the  tissues.     No  limit 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  45 

can  be  set  to  the  possible  duration  of  a  trance 
when  the  external  conditions  protect  the  body 
from  physical  injury.  This  trance  of  yours 
is  indeed  the  longest  of  which  there  is  any 
positive  record,  but  there  is  no  known  reason 
wherefore,  had  you  not  been  discovered  and 
had  the  chamber  in  which  we  found  you  con- 
tinued intact,  you  might  not  have  remained  in 
a  state  of  suspended  animation  till,  at  the  end 
of  indefinite  ages,  the  gradual  refrigeration  of 
the  earth  had  destroyed  the  bodily  tissues  and 
set  the  spirit  free." 

I  had  to  admit  that,  if  I  were  indeed  the  vic- 
tim of  a  practical  joke,  its  authors  had  chosen 
an  admirable  agent  for  carrying  out  their  im- 
position. The  impressive  and  even  eloquent 
manner  of  this  man  would  have  lent  dignity  to 
an  argument  that  the  moon  was  made  of  cheese. 
The  smile  with  which  I  had  regarded  him  as 
he  advanced  his  trance  hypothesis,  did  not 
appear  to  confuse  him  in  the  slightest  degree. 

"Perhaps,"!  said,  "you  will  go  on  and  favor 


46  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

me  with  some  particuTars  as  to  the  circum- 
stances under  which  you  discovered  this  cham- 
ber of  which  you  speak,  and  its  contents.  1 
enjoy  good  fiction." 

"In  this  case,"  was  the  grave  reply,  "no 
fiction  could  be  so  strange  as  the  truth.  You 
must  know  that  these  many  years  I  have  been 
cherishing  the  idea  of  building  a  laboratory 
in  the  large  garden  beside  this  house  for  the 
purpose  of  chemical  experiments  for  which  I 
have  a  taste.  Last  Thursday  the  excavation 
for  the  cellar  was  at  last  begun.  It  was  com- 
pleted by  that  night,  and  Friday  the  masons 
were  to  have  come.  Thursday  night  we  had 
a  tremendous  deluge  of  rain,  and  Friday  morn- 
ing I  found  my  cellar  a  frog-pond  and  the 
walls  quite  w^ashed  down.  Isly  daughter,  who 
had  come  out  to  view  the  disaster  with  me, 
called  my  attention  to  a  corner  of  masonry  laid 
bare  by  the  crumbling  away  of  one  of  the  walls. 
I  cleared  a  litde  earth  from  it  and,  finding  that 
it  seemed  part  of  a  large  mass,  determined  to 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  47 

investigate  it.  The  workmen  I  sent  for  un- 
earthed an  oblong  vault  some  eight  feet  below 
the  surface  and  set  in  the  corner  of  what  had 
evidentl}^  been  the  foundation  walls  of  an  an- 
cient house.  A  layer  of  ashes  and  charcoal 
on  the  top  of  the  vault  showed  that  the  house 
above  had  perished  by  fire.  The  vault  itself 
was  perfectl}^  intact,  the  cement  being  as  good 
as  when  first  applied.  It  had  a  door,  but  this 
we  could  not  force  and  found  entrance  by  re- 
moving one  of  the  flagstones  which  formed  the 
roof.  The  air  which  came  up  was  stagnant, 
but  pure,  dry  and  not  cold.  Descending  with 
a  lantern,  I  found  myself  in  an  apartment  iitted 
np  as  a  bedroom  in  the  style  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  On  the  bed  lay  a  young  man.  That 
he  was  dead  and  must  have  been  dead  a  cen- 
tury, was  of  course  to  be  taken  for  granted  : 
but  the  extraordinary  state  of  preservation  of 
the  body,  struck  me  and  the  medical  col- 
leagues whom  I  had  summoned  with  amaze- 
ment.   That  the  art  of  such  embalming  as  this 


4^  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

had  ever  been  known  we  should  not  have  be- 
lieved, yet  here  seemed  conclusive  testimony 
that  our  immediate  ancestors  had  possessed  it. 
My  medical  colleagues,  whose  curiosity  was 
highly  excited,  were  at  once  for  undertaking 
experiments  to  test  the  nature  of  the  process 
employed,  but  I  withheld  them.  My  motive 
in  so  doing,  at  least  the  only  motive  I  now 
need  speak  of,  was  the  recollection  of  some- 
thincr  I  once  had  read  about  the  extent  to  which 
your  contemporaries  had  cultivated  the  subject 
of  animal  magnetism.  It  had  occurred  to  me 
as  just  conceivable  that  3^ou  might  be  in  a 
trance,  and  that  the  secret  of  your  bodily  in- 
tegrity after  so  long  a  time  was  not  the  craft 
of  an  embalmer,  but  life.  So  extremely  fanci- 
ful did  this  idea  seem,  even  to  me,  that  I  did 
not  risk  the  ridicule  of  my  fellow  physicians 
by  mentioning  it,  but  gave  some  other  reason 
for  postponing  their  experiments.  No  sooner, 
however,  had  they  left  me,  than  I  set  on  foot 
a  systematic  attempt  at  resuscitation,  of  which 
you  know  the  result." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  49 

Had  its  theme  been  yet  more  incredible,  the 
circumstantiality  of  this  narrative,  as  well  as 
the  impressive  manner  and  personality  of  the 
narrator,  might  have  staggered  a  listener,  and 
I  had  begun  to  feel  very  strangely,  when, 
as  he  closed,  I  chanced  to  catch  a  glimpse 
of  my  reflection  in  a  mirror  hanging  on  the 
wall  of  the  room.  I  rose  and  went  up  to 
it.  The  face  I  saw  was  the  face  to  a  hair 
and  a  line  and  not  a  day  older  than  the  one 
I  had  looked  at  as  I  tied  my  cravat  before 
going  to  Edith  that  Decoration  Day,  which,  as 
this  man  would  have  me  believe,  was  cele- 
brated one  hundred  and  thirteen  years  before. 
At  this,  the  colossal  character  of  the  fraud 
which  was  being  attempted  on  me,  came  over 
me  afresh.  Indignation  mastered  m^^  mind 
as  I  realized  the  outrageous  liberty  that  had 
been  taken. 

"You  are  probably  surprised,"  said  my  com- 
panion, "to  see  that,  although  you  are  a  cen- 
tury older  than  when  you  lay  down  to  sleep  in 


50  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

that  underground  chamber,  your  appearance  is 
unchanged.  That  should  not  amaze  you.  It  is 
by  virtue  of  tlie  total  arrest  of  the  vital  func- 
tions that  you  have  survived  this  great  period 
of  time.  If  your  body  could  have  undergone 
any  change  during  your  trance,  it  would  long 
ae^o  have  suffered  dissolution." 

"Sir,"  I  replied,  turning  to  him,  "what  your 
motive  can  be  in  reciting  to  me  with  a  serious 
face  this  remarkable  farrago,  I  am  utterly 
unable  to  guess  ;  but  you  are  surely  yourself 
too  intelligent  to  suppose  that  anybody  but 
an  imbecile  could  be  deceived  by  it.  Spare 
me  any  more  of  this  elaborate  nonsense  and 
once  for  all  tell  me  whether  you  refuse  to  give 
me  an  intelligible  account  of  where  I  am  and 
how  I  came  here.  If  so,  I  shall  proceed  to 
ascertain  my  whereabouts  for  myself,  whoever 
may  hinder." 

*■  You  do  not,  then,  believe  that  this  is  the 
year  2000?  " 

"  Do  you  real!}'  think  it  necessary  to  ask  me 
that?"  I  returned. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  5 1 

"Very  well,"  replied  my  extraordinary  host. 
"Since  I  cannot  convince  you,  you  shall  con- 
vince yourself.  Are  you  strong  enough  to  fol- 
low me  upstairs  ?  " 

"I  am  as  strong  as  I  ever  was,"  I  replied 
angrily,  "  as  I  may  have  to  prove  if  this  jest 
is  carried  much  farther." 

"I  beg,  sir,"  was  my  companion's  response, 
"  that  you  will  not  allow  yourself  to  be  too  fully 
persuaded  that  you  are  the  victim  of  a  trick, 
lest  the  reaction,  when  3^ou  are  convinced  of 
the  truth  of  my  statements,  should  be  too 
great." 

The  tone  of  concern,  mingled  with  com- 
miseration, with  which  he  said  this,  and  the 
entire  absence  of  any  sign  of  resentment  at  my 
hot  words,  strangel}^  daunted  me,  and  I  fol- 
lowed him  from  the  room  with  an  extraordinary 
mixture  of  emotions.  He  led  the  way  up  two 
flights  of  stairs  and  then  up  a  shorter  one, 
which  landed  us  upon  a  belvedere  on  the  house- 
top.   "Be  pleased  to  look  around  you,"  he  said, 


52  LOOKING   BACKWARD, 

as  we  reached  the  platform,  "and  tell  me  if 
this  is  the  Boston  of  the  nineteenth  century." 

At  my  feet  lay  a  great  city.  Miles  of  broad 
streets,  shaded  by  trees  and  lined  with  fine 
buildings,  for  the  most  part  not  in  continuous 
blocks  but  set  in  larger  or  smaller  enclosures, 
stretched  in  every  direction.  Every  quarter 
contained  large  open  squares  filled  with  trees, 
among  which  statues  glistened  and  fountains 
flashed  in  the  late  afternoon  sun.  Public  build- 
ings of  a  colossal  size  and  an  architectural 
grandeur  unparalleled  in  my  day,  raised  their 
stately  piles  on  every  side.  Surely  I  had  never 
seen  this  city  nor  one  comparable  to  it  before. 
Raising  my  eyes  at  last  towards  the  horizon, 
I  looked  westward.  That  blue  ribbon  wind- 
ing away  to  the  sunset,  was  it  not  the  sinu- 
ous Charles  ?  I  looked  east ;  Boston  harbor 
stretched  before  me  within  its  headlands,  not 
one  of  its  green  islets  missing. 

I  knew  then  that  I  had  been  told  the  truth 
concerning  the  prodigious  thing  which  had 
befallen  me. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  53 


CHAPTER   IV. 

T  DID  not  faint,  but  the  effort  to  realize  my 
position  made  me  very  giddy,  and  I  re- 
member that  my  companion  had  to  give  me 
a  strong  arm  as  he  conducted  me  from  the 
roof  to  a  roomy  apartment  on  the  upper  floor 
of  the  house,  where  he  insisted  on  my  drink- 
ing a  glass  or  two  of  good  wine  and  partaking 
of  a  light  repast. 

"I  think  you  are  going  to  be  all  right  now," 
he  said  cheerily.  ^'  I  should  not  have  taken 
so  abrupt  a  means  to  convince  you  of  your 
position  if  your  course,  while  perfectly  excusa- 
ble under  the  circumstances,  had  not  rather 
obliged  me  to  do  so.  I  confess,"  he  added 
laughing,  "  I  was  a  little  apprehensive  at  one 
time  that  I  should  undergo  what  I  believe  you 
used  to  call  a  knockdown  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  if  I  did  not  act  rather  promptly.      I 


54  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

remembered  that  the  Bostonians  of  your  day 
were  famous  pugilists,  and  thought  best  to  lose 
no  time.  I  take  it  you  are  now  ready  to  acquit 
me  of  the  charge  of  hoaxing  you." 

"If  3^ou  had  told  me,"  I  replied,  profoundh' 
awed,  "that  a  thousand  years  instead  of  a  hun- 
dred had  elapsed  since  I  last  looked  on  this 
city,  I  should  now  believe  you." 

"Only  a  century  has  passed,"  he  answered, 
^'but  many  a  millenium  in  the  world's  history 
has  seen  changes  less  extraordinary." 

"And  now^"  he  added,  extending  his  hand 
with  an  air  of  irresistible  cordiality,  "let  me 
give  3'ou  a  hearty  welcome  to  the  Boston  of 
the  twentieth  centur}^  and  to  this  house.  My 
name  is  Leete,  Dr.  Leete  they  call  me." 

"My  name,"  I  said  as  I  shook  his  hand,  "is 
Julian  West." 

"I  am  most  happ}'  in  making  3'our  acquaint- 
ance, Mr.  West,"  he  responded.  "Seeing  that 
this  house  is  built  on  the  site  of  your  own,  I 
hope  3^ou  will  find  it  easy  to  make  yourself  at 
home  in  it." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  55 

After  my  refreshment  Dr.  Leete  offered  me 
a  bath  and  a  change  of  clothing,  of  which  I 
gladly  availed  myself. 

It  did  not  appear  that  any  very  starding 
revolution  in  men's  attire  had  been  among  the 
great  changes  my  host  had  spoken  of,  for,  bar- 
ring a  few  details,  my  new  habiliments  did 
not  puzzle  me  at  all. 

Physically,  I  w^as  now  myself  again.  But 
mentally,  how  was  it  with  me,  the  reader  will 
doubtless  wonder.  What  were  my  intellect- 
ual sensations,  he  may  wish  to  know,  on  finding 
myself  so  suddenly  dropped  as  it  were  into  a 
new  w^orld.  In  reply  let  me  ask  him  to 
suppose  himself  suddenly,  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye,  transported  from  earth,  say,  to  Paradise 
or  Hades.  What  does  he  fancy  would  be  his 
own  experience?  Would  his  thoughts  return 
at  once  to  the  earth  he  had  just  left,  or  would 
he,  after  the  first  shock,  wellnigh  forget  his 
former  life  for  a  while,  albeit  to  be  remem- 
bered later,  in  the  interest  excited  by  his  new 


56  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

surroundings?  All  I  can  say  is,  that  if  his 
experience  were  at  all  like  mine  in  the  transi- 
tion I  am  describing,  the  latter  hypothesis 
would  prove  the  correct  one.  The  impressions 
of  amazement  and  curiosity  which  my  new 
surroundings  produced  occupied  my  mind, 
after  the  first  shock,  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
other  thoughts.  For  the  time  the  memory  of 
my  former  life  was,  as  it  were,  in  abe3^ance. 

No  sooner  did  I  find  myself  physically  re- 
habilitated through  the  kind  offices  of  my  host, 
than  I  became  eager  to  return  to  the  housetop  ; 
and  presently  we  were  comfortably  established 
there  in  easy  chairs,  with  the  cit}^  beneath  and 
around  us.  After  Dr.  Leete  had  responded  to 
numerous  questions  on  my  part,  as  to  the  an- 
cient landmarks  I  missed  and  the  new  ones 
w^hich  had  replaced  them,  he  asked  me  what 
point  of  the  contrast  between  the  new  and  the 
old  city  struck  me  most  forcibl}'. 

"  To  speak  of  small  things  before  great,"  I 
responded,  "I  really  think  that  the  complete 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  57 

absence  of  chimneys  and  their  smoke  is  the 
detail  that  first  impressed  me." 

"  Ah  !  "  ejaculated  my  companion  with  an 
air  of  much  interest,  "  I  had  forgotten  the 
chimneys,  it  is  so  long  since  they  went  out 
of  use.  It  is  nearly  a  century  since  the  crude 
method  of  combustion  on  which  you  depended 
for  heat  became  obsolete." 

"In  general,"  I  said,  "what  impresses  me 
most  about  the  city,  is  the  material  prosperity 
on  the  part  of  the  people  which  its  magnifi- 
cence implies." 

"I  would  give  a  great  deal  for  just  one 
glimpse  of  the  Boston  of  your  day,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete.  "No  doubt,  as  you  imply,  the  cities  of 
that  period  were  rather  shabby  affairs.  If  you 
had  the  taste  to  make  them  splendid,  which  I 
would  not  be  so  rude  as  to  question,  the  gen- 
eral poverty  resulting  from  your  extraordinary 
industrial  system  v/ould  not  have  given  you 
the  means.  Moreover,  the  excessive  individ- 
ualism which  then  prevailed  was  inconsistent 


50  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

with  much  pubHc  spirit.  What  Httle  wealth  3^ou 
had  seems  ahnost  wholly  to  have  been  lavished 
in  private  luxury.  Nowadays,  on  the  contrary, 
there  is  no  destination  of  the  surplus  wealth 
so  popular  as  the  adornment  of  the  city,  which 
all  enjoy  in  equal  degree." 

The  sun  had  been  setting  as  we  returned  to 
the  housetop,  and  as  we  talked  night  descended 
upon  the  city. 

"It  is  growing  dark,"  said  Dr.  Leete.  "Let 
us  descend  into  the  house  ;  I  want  to  introduce 
my  wife  and  daughter  to  you." 

His  words  recalled  to  me  the  feminine 
voices  which  I  had  heard  whispering  about 
me  as  I  was  coming  back  to  conscious  life ; 
and,  most  curious  to  learn  what  the  ladies  of 
the  year  2000  were  like,  I  assented  with  alac- 
rity to  the  proposition.  The  apartment  in 
which  we  found  the  wife  and  daughter  of  m}^ 
host,  as  well  as  the  entire  interior  of  the  house, 
was  filled  with  a  mellow  light,  which  I  knew 
must   be  artificial,  although  I  could   not  dis- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  59 

cover  the  source  from  which  it  was  diffused. 
Mrs.  Leete  was  an  exceptionally  fine  looking 
and  well  preserved  woman  of-  about  her  hus- 
band's age,  while  the  daughter,  who  was  in 
the  first  blush  of  womanhood,  was  the  most 
beautiful  girl  I  had  ever  seen.  Her  face  was 
as  bewitching  as  deep  blue  eyes,  delicately 
tinted  complexion  and  perfect  features  could 
make  it,  but  even  had  her  countenance  lacked 
special  charms,  the  faukless  luxuriance  of  her 
figure  would  have  given  her  place  as  a 
beauty  among  the  women  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Feminine  softness  and  delicacy  were 
in  this  lovely  creature  deliciously  combined 
with  an  appearance  of  health  and  abounding 
physical  vitality  too  often  lacking  in  the 
maidens  with  whom  alone  I  could  compare 
her.  It  was  a  coincidence  trifling  in  com- 
parison with  the  general  strangeness  of  the 
situation,  but  still  striking,  that  her  name 
should  be  Edith. 

The    evening   that   followed   was   certainly 


6o  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

unique  in  the  history  of  social  intercourse,  but 
to  suppose  that  our  conversation  was  peculiarly 
strained  o:  difficult,  would  be  a  great  mistake. 
I  believe  indeed  that  it  is  under  wiiat  may  be 
called  unnatural,  in  the  sense  of  extraordinary, 
circumstances  that  people  behave  most  natur- 
ally, for  the  reason  no  doubt  that  such  circum- 
stances banish  artificiality.  I  know  at  any 
rate  that  m}^  intercourse  that  evening  with  these 
representatives  of  another  age  and  world  was 
marked  by  an  ingenuous  sincerity  and  frank- 
ness such  as  but  rarely  crown  long  acquain- 
tance. No  doubt  the  exquisite  tact  of  my 
entertainers  had  much  to  do  with  this.  Of 
course  there  was  nothing  we  could  talk  of  but 
the  strange  experience  by  virtue  of  which 
I  was  there,  but  they  talked  of  it  with  an 
interest  so  naive  and  direct  in  its  expression 
as  to  relieve  the  subject  to  a  great  degree  of 
the  element  of  the  weird  and  the  uncanny 
which  might  so  easil}^  have  been  overpowering. 
One   would    have   supposed    that   they   were 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  6l 

quite  in  the  habit  of  entertaining  waifs    from 
another  century,  so  perfect  was  their  tact. 

For  my  own  part,  never  do  I  remember  the 
operations  of  my  mind  to  have  been  more 
alert  and  acute  than  that  evening,  or  my 
intellectual  sensibilities  more  keen.  Oi  course 
I  do  not  mean  that  the  consciousness  of  my 
amazing  situation  vs^as  for  a  moment  out  of 
mind,  but  its  chief  effect  thus  far  was  to  pro- 
duce a  feverish  elation,  a  sort  of  mental  intoxi- 
cation.* 

Edith  Leete  took  little  part  in  the  con^ 
versation  but  when  several  times  the  mao-- 
netism  of  her  beauty  drew  my  glance  to  her 
tace,  I  found  her  eyes  fixed  on  me  v/ith  an 
absorbed  intensity,  almost  like  fascination. 
It  was  evident  that  I  had  excited  her  interest 

*  In  accounting  for  this  state  of  mind  it  must  be  remembered  that 
except  for  the  topic  of  our  conversations  there  was  in  my  surroundings 
next  to  nothing  to  suggest  what  had  befallen  me.  Witliin  a  block  of 
my  home  in  the  old  Boston  I  could  have  found  social  circles  vastly  more 
foreign  to  me.  The  speech  of  the  Bostonians  of  the  twentieth  century 
differs  even  less  from  that  of  their  cultured  ancestors  cf  the  nineteenth 
than  did  that  of  the  latter  from  the  langauge  of  Washington  and  Frank- 
lin,  while  the  differences  between  the  style  of  dress  and  furniture  of  die 
two  epochs  are  not  more  marked  than  I  have  known  fashion  to  mjike  in 
the  time  of  one  generation. 


62  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

to  an  extraordinary  degree,  as  was  not  aston- 
ishing, supposing  her  to  be  a  girl  of  im- 
agination. Though  I  supposed  curiosity  was 
the  chief  motive  of  her  interest,  it  could  but 
affect  me  as  it  would  not  have  done  had  she 
been  less  beautiful. 

Dr.  Leet^,  as  well  as  the  ladies,  seemed 
greatly  interested  in  my  account  of  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  I  had  gone  to  sleep 
in  the  underground  chamber.  All  had  sug- 
gestions to  otTer  to  account  for  my  having 
been  forgotten  there,  and  the  theory  which 
we  finally  agreed  on  offers  at  least  a  phiusible 
explanation,  although  whether  it  be  in  its  de- 
tails the  true  one,  nobody,  of  course,  will  ever 
know.  The  layer  of  ashes  found  above  the 
chamber  indicated  that  the  house  had  been 
burned  down.  Let  it  be  supposed  that  the 
conflagration  had  taken  place  the  night  I 
fell  asleep.  It  only  remains  to  assume  that 
Sawyer  lost  his  life  in  the  fire  or  by  some 
accident    connected    with    it,    and    the    rest 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  6'^ 

follows  naturally  enough.  No  one  but  he 
and  Dr.  Pillsbury  either  knew  of  the  exist- 
ence of  the  chamber  or  that  I  was  in  it, 
and  Dr.  Pillsbury,  who  had  gone  that  night 
to  New  Orleans,  had  probably  never  heard 
of  the  fire  at  all.  The  conclusion  of  my 
friends,  and  of  the  public,  must  have  been 
that  I  had  perished  in  the  flames.  An  ex- 
cavation of  the  ruins,  unless  thorough,  would 
not  have  disclosed  the  recess  in  the  foundation 
walls  connecting  with  my  chamber.  To  be 
sure,  if  the  site  had  been  again  built  upon,  at 
least  immediatel}^,  such  an  excavation  would 
have  been  necessary,  but  the  troublous  times 
and  the  undesirable  character  of  the  locality 
might  well  have  prevented  rebuilding.  The 
size  of  the  trees  in  the  garden  now  occupying 
the  site  indicated.  Dr.  Leete  said,  that  for  more 
than  half  a  century  at  least  it  had  been  open 
ground. 


64  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  V. 

T  T  THEN,  in  the  course  of  the  evening  the 
'  '  Ladies  retired,  leaving  Dr.  Leete  and 
myself  alone,  he  sounded  me  as  to  my  dispo- 
sition for  sleep,  saying  that  if  I  felt  like  it  my 
bed  was  ready  for  me ;  but  if  I  was  inclined 
to  wakefulness  nothing  would  please  him  bet- 
ter than  to  bear  me  company.  "I  am  a  late 
bird,  myself,"  he  said,  "  and,  without  suspi- 
cion of  flattery,  I  may  say  that  a  companion 
more  interesting  than  yourself  could  scarcely 
be  imagined.  It  is  decidedly  not  often  that 
one  has  a  chance  to  converse  with  a  man  of 
the    nineteenth    century." 

Now  I  had  been  looking  forward  all  the 
evenin<x  with  some  dread  to  the  time  when  I 
should  be  alone,  on  retiring  for  the  night. 
Surrounded  by  these  most  friendly  strangers, 
stimulated  and  supported  by  their  sympathetic 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  65 

interest,  I  had  been  able  to  keep  my  mental 
balance.  Even  then,  however,  in  pauses  of 
the  conversation  I  had  had  glimpses,  vivid  as 
lightning  flashes,  of  the  horror  of  strangeness 
that  was  waiting  to  be  faced  when  1  could  no 
longer  command  diversion.  I  knew  I  could 
not  sleep  that  night,  and  as  for  lying  awake 
and  thinking,  it  argues  no  cowardice,  I  am 
sure,  to  confess  that  I  was  afraid  it.  When,  in 
reply  to  my  host's  question,  I  frankly  told  him 
this,  he  replied,  that  it  would  be  strange  if  I 
did  not  feel  just  so,  but  that  I  need  have  no 
anxiety  about  sleeping ;  whenever  I  wanted  to 
go  to  bed,  he  would  give  me  a  dose  which 
would  insure  me  a  sound  night's  sleep  without 
fail.  Next  morning,  no  doubt,  I  would  awake 
with  the  feeling  of  an  old  citizen." 

"Before  I  acquire  that,"  I  replied,  "I  must 
know  a  little  more  about  the  sort  of  Boston  I 
have  come  back  to.  You  told  me  when  w^e  were 
upon  the  housetop  that  though  a, century  only 
had  elapsed  since  I  fell   asleep,  it  had  been 


66  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

marked  by  greater  changes  in  the  conditions  of 
humanity  than  many  a  previous  millenium. 
With  the  city  before  me  I  could  well  believe 
that,  but  I  am  very  curious  to  know  what  some 
of  the  changes  have  been.  To  make  a  begin- 
ning somewhere,  for  the  subject  is  doubtless  a 
large  one,  what  solution,  if  any,  have  you 
found  for  the  labor  question?  It  was  the 
Sphinx's  riddle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
when  I  dropped  out  the  Sphinx  was  threaten- 
ing to  devour  society,  because  the  answer  was 
not  forthcoming.  It  is  well  worth  sleeping  a 
hundred  years  to  learn  what  the  right  answer 
was,  if,  indeed,  you  have  found  it  yet." 

"As  no  such  thing  as  the  labor  question  is 
known  nowadays,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "and 
there  is  no  way  in  which  it  could  arise,  I  sup- 
pose we  may  claim  to  have  solved  it.  Society 
would  indeed  have  fully  deserved  being  de- 
voured if  it  had  failed  to  answer  a  riddle  so 
entirely  simple.  In  fact,  to  speak  by  the 
book,  it  was  not  necessary  for  society  to  solve 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  67 

the  riddle  at  all.  It  may  be  said  to  have 
solved  itself.  Tlie  solution  came  as  the  result 
of  a  process  of  industrial  evolution  which  could 
not  have  terminated  otherwise.  All  that  so- 
ciety had  to  do  was  to  recognize  and  co-oper- 
ate with  that  evolution,  when  its  tendency  had 
become  unmistakable." 

'^I  can  only  say,"  I  answered,  "that  at  the 
time  I  fell  asleep  no  such  evolution  had  been 
recognized." 

"It  was  in  1887  that  you  fell  into  this  sleep, 
I  think  you  said." 

"Yes,  May  30th,  1887." 

My  companion  regarded  me  musingl}^  for 
some  moments.  Then  he  observed,  "And 
you  tell  me  that  even  then  there  was  no  gen- 
eral recognition  of  the  nature  of  the  crisis 
which  society  was  nearing?  Of  course,  I 
fully  credit  your  statement.  The  singular 
blindness  of  your  contemporaries  to  the  signs 
of  the  times  is  a  phenomenon  commented  on 
by  many  of  our   historians,  but   few  facts  of 


68  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

history  are  more  difficult  for  us  to  realize,  so 
obvious  and  unmistakable  as  we  look  back 
seem  the  indications,  which  must  also  have 
come  under  your  eyes,  of  the  transformation 
about  to  come  to  pass.  I  should  be  interested, 
Mr.  West,  if  you  would  give  me  a  little  more 
definite  idea  of  the  view  which  you  and  men 
of  your  grade  of  intellect  took  of  the  state  and 
prospects  of  society  in  1887.  You  must,  at 
least,  have  realized  that  the  widespread  indus- 
trial and  social  troubles,  and  the  underlvincr  dis- 
satisfaction  of  all  classes  with  the  inequalities 
of  society,  and  the  general  misery  of  mankind, 
were  portents  of  great  changes  of  some  sort." 

"We  did,  indeed,  fully  realize  that,"  I 
replied.  "  We  felt  that  societ}^  was  dragging 
anchor  and  in  danger  of  going  adrift.  Whither 
it  would  drift  nobody  could  say,  but  all  feared 
the  rocks." 

"Nevertheless,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  "the  set  of 
the  current  w^as  perfectly  perceptible  if  you 
had  but  taken  pains  to  observe  it,  and  it  was 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  69 

not  toward  the  rocks,   but   toward  a    deeper 
channel." 

"We  had  a  popular  proverb,"  I  replied, 
"that  'hindsight  is  better  than  foresight,'  the 
force  of  which  I  shall  now,  no  doubt,  appre- 
ciate more  fully  than  ever.  All  I  can  say  is, 
that  the  prospect  was  such  when  I  went  into 
that  long  sleep  that  I  should  not  have  been 
surprised  had  I  looked  down  from  your 
housetop  to-day  on  a  heap  of  charred  and 
moss-grown  ruins  instead  of  this  glorious 
city." 

Dr.  Leete  had  listened  to  me  with  close 
attention  and  nodded  thoughtfully  as  I  finished 
speaking.  "What  you  have  said,"  lie  ob- 
served, "  will  be  regarded  as  a  most  valuable 
vindication  of  Storiot,  whose  account  of  3-our 
era  has  been  generally  thought  exaggerated 
in  its  picture  of  the  gloom  and  confusion  of 
men's  minds.  That  a  period  of  transition  like 
that  should  be  full  of  excitement  and  a^ita- 
tion  was  indeed  to  be  looked  for,  but  seeing 


70  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

how  plain  was  the  tendency  of  the  forces  in 
operation,  it  was  natural  to  believe  tliat  hope 
rather  than  fear  would  have  been  the  prevailing 
temper  of  the  popular  mind." 

"You  have  not  yet  told  me  what  was  the 
answer  to  the  riddle  which  you  found,"  I  said. 
"I  am  impatient  to  know  by  what  contradiction 
of  natural  sequence  the  peace  and  prosperity 
which  you  now  seem  to  enjoy  could  have  been 
the  outcome  of  an  era  like  my  own." 

"Excuse  me,"  replied  my  host,"  "but  do 
you  smoke?"  It  was  not  till  our  cigars  were 
lighted  and  drawing  well  that  he  resumed. 
"  Since  you  are  in  the  humor  to  talk  rather 
than  to  sleep,  as  I  certainly  am,  perhaps  I  can- 
not do  better  than  to  try  to  give  you  enough 
idea  of  our  modern  industrial  system  to 
dissipate  at  least  the  impression  that  there  is 
any  mystery  about  the  process  of  its  evolution. 
The  Bostonians  of  your  day.  h.ad  the  reputation 
of  being  great  askers  of  questions,  and  I  am 
going  to  show  my  descent  by  asking  you  one 


LOOKING    BACKWARD.  71 

to  begin  with.  What  should  you  name  as  the 
most  prominent  feature  of  the  labor  troubles  of 
your  day  ?  " 

"Why,  the  strikes,  of  course,"  I  replied. 

"  Exactly ;  but  what  made  the  strikes  so 
formidable?" 

"The  great  labor  organizations." 

"  And  what  was  the  motive  of  these  great 
organizations?" 

"The  workmen  claimed  they  had  to  organ- 
ize to  get  their  rights  from  the  big  corpora- 
tions," I  replied. 

"That  is  just  it,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  "the  or- 
ganization of  labor  and  the  strikes  were  an 
effect,  merely,  of  the  concentration  of  capital 
in  greater  masses  than  had  ever  been  known 
before.  Before  this  concentration  bei'^an,  while 
as  yet  commerce  and  industry  were  conducted 
b}'^  innumerable  petty  concerns  with  small  cap- 
ital, instead  of  a  small  number  of  great  concerns 
w^ith  vast  capital,  the  individual  workman  was 
relatively  important   and    independent   in    his 


72  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

relations  to  the  employer.  Moreover,  when 
a  little  capital  or  a  new  idea  was  enough  to 
start  a  man  in  business  for  himself,  working- 
men  were  constantly  becoming  employers  and 
there  was  no  hard  and  fast  line  between  the 
two  classes.  Labor  unions  were  needless  then, 
and  general  strikes  out  of  the  question.  But 
when  the  era  of  small  concerns  with  small 
capital  was  succeeded  by  that  of  the  great 
aggregations  of  capital,  all  this  was  changed. 
The  individual  laborer  who  had  been  relatively 
important  to  the  small  employer  was  reduced  to 
insignificance  and  powerlessness  over  against 
the  great  corporation,  while,  at  the  same  time, 
the  way  upward  to  the  grade  of  employer  was 
closed  to  him.  Self-defence  drove  him  to 
union  with  his  fellows. 

"The  records  of  the  period  show  that  the  out- 
cry against  the  concentration  of  capital  was 
furious.  Men  believed  that  it  threatened 
society  with  a  form  of  tyranny  more  ab- 
horrent than   it  had  ever  endured.     They  be- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  73 

lieved  that  the  great  corporations  were  prepar- 
ing for  them  the  yoke  of  a  baser  servitude  than 
had  ever  been  imposed  on  the  race,  servitude 
not  to  men  but  to  soulless  machines  incapable 
of  any  motive  but  insatiable  greed.  Looking 
back,  we  cannot  wonder  at  their  desperation, 
for  certainly  humanity  was  never  confronted 
with  a  fate  more  sordid  and  hideous  than  would 
have  been  the  era  of  corporate  tyranny  which 
they  anticipated. 

"Meanwhile,  without  being  in  the  smallest 
degree  checked  by  the  clamor  against  it,  the 
absorption  of  business  by  ever  larger  monopo- 
lies continued.  In  the  United  States,  where 
this  tendency  was  later  in  developing  than  in 
Europe,  there  was  not,  after  the  beginning  of 
the  last  quarter  of  the  century,  any  opportunity 
whatever  for  individual  enterprise  in  any  im- 
portant field  of  industry,  unless  backed  by  a 
great  capital.  During  the  last  decade  of  the 
century,  such  small  businesses  as  still  remained 
were  fast  failing  survivals  of  a  past  epoch,  or 


74  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

mere  parasites  on  the  great  corporations,  or  else 
existed  in  fields  too  small  to  attract  the  great 
capitalicls.  Small  businesses,  as  far  as  they 
still  remained,  were  reduced  to  the  condition 
of  rats  and  mice,  living  in  holes  and  corners, 
and  counting  on  evading  notice  for  the  enjoy- 
ment of  existence.  The  railroads  had  gone  on 
combining  till  a  few  great  syndicates  controlled 
every  rail  in  the  land.  In  manufactories,  every 
important  staple  was  controlled  b}^  a  syndicate. 
These  syndicates,  pools,  trusts,  or  whatever 
their  name,  fixed  prices  and  crushed  all  com- 
petition except  when  combinations  as  vast  as 
themselves  arose.  Then  a  struggle,  resulting 
in  a  still  greater  consolidation,  ensued.  The 
great  city  bazar  crushed  its  country  rivals  with 
branch  stores,  and  in  the  city  itself  absorbed  its 
smaller  rivals  till  the  business  of  a  whole  quarter 
was  concentrated  under  one  roof  with  a  hundred 
former  ])roprietors  of  shops  serving  as  clerks. 
Having  no  business  of  his  own  to  put  liis  money 
in,  the  small  capitalist,  at  the  same  time  that 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  75 

he  took  service  under  the  corporation,  found 
no  other  investment  for  his  money  but  its 
stocks  and  bonds,  thus  becoming  doubly  de- 
pendent upon  it. 

"The  fact  that  the  desperate  popular  oppo- 
sition to  the  consolidation  of  business  in  a  few 
powerful  hands  had  no  effect  to  check  it,  proves 
that  there  must  have  been  a  strong  economical 
reason  for  it.  The  small  capitalists,  with  their 
innumerable  petty  concerns,  had,  in  fact, 
yielded  the  held  to  the  great  aggregations  of 
capital,  because  they  belonged  to  a  day  of 
small  things  and  were  totally  incompetent  to 
the  demands  of  an  age  of  steam  and  telegraphs 
and  the  gigantic  scale  of  its  enterprises.  To 
restore  the  former  order  of  things,  even  if 
possible,  would  have  involved  returning  to 
the  day  of  stage-coaches.  Oppressive  and 
intolerable  as  was  the  regime  of  the  great 
consolidations  of  capital,  even  its  victims,  while 
they  cursed  it,  were  forced  to  admit  the  pro- 
digious increase  of  efficiency  which  had  been 


*]6  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

imparted  to  the  national  industries,  the  vast 
economies  eflected  by  concentration  of  manage- 
ment and  unity  of  organization,  and  to  confess 
that  since  the  new  system  had  taken  the  place 
of  the  old,  the  wealth  of  the  world  hac),  increased 
at  a  rate  before  undreamed  of.  To  be  sure 
this  vast  increase  had  gone  chiefly  to  make 
the  rich  richer,  increasing  the  gap  between 
them  and  the  poor;  but  the  fact  remained 
that,  as  a  means  merely  of  producing  wealth, 
capital  had  been  proved  efficient  in  proportion 
to  its  consolidation.  The  restoration  of  the 
old  system  v/ith  the  subdivision  of  capital, 
if  it  were  possible,  might  indeed  bring  back  a 
greater  equalit}^  of  conditions  with  more  indi- 
vidual dignity  and  freedom,  but  it  would  be  at 
the  price  of  general  poverty  and  the  arrest 
of  material  progress. 

"Was  there,  then,  no  way  of  commanding 
the  services  of  the  m.ighty  wealth-producing 
principle  of  consolidated  capital,  without  bow- 
ing down   to   a   plutocracy  like   that  of  Car- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  77 

thage?  As  soon  as  men  began  to  ask  them- 
selves these  questions,  they  found  the  answer 
ready  for  them.  The  movement  toward  the 
conduct  of  business  by  larger  and  larger 
aggregations  of  capital,  the  tendency  toward 
monopolies,  which  had  been  so  desperately 
and  vainly  resisted,  was  recognized  at  last,  in 
its  true  significance,  as  a  process  which  only 
needed  to  complete  its  logical  evolution  to 
open  a  golden  future  to  humanity. 

"  Early  in  the  last  century  the  evolution  was 
completed  by  the  final  consolidation  of  the 
entire  capital  of  the  nation.  The  industry 
and  commerce  of  the  country,  ceasing  to  be 
conducted  by  a  set  of  irresponsible  corpo- 
rations and  syndicates  of  private  persons  at 
their  caprice  and  for  their  profit,  were  intrusted 
to  a  single  syndicate  representing  the  people, 
to  be  conducted  in  the  common  interest  for  the 
common  profit.  The  nation,  that  is  to  say, 
organized  as  the  one  great  business  corpora- 
tion   in   which    all    other    corporations    were 


78  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

absorbed  ;  it  became  the  one  capitalist  in  the 
place  of  all  other  capitalists,  the  sole  em- 
ployer, the  final  monopoly  in  \Yhich  all  pre- 
vious and  lesser  monopolies  were  swallowed 
up,  a  monopoly  in  the  profits  and  economies 
of  which  all  citizens  shared.  In  a  word,  the 
people  of  the  United  States  concluded  to  as- 
sume the  conduct  of  their  own  business,  just 
as  one  hundred  odd  years  before  they  had 
assumed  the  conduct  of  their  own  government, 
organizing  now  for  industrial  purposes  on 
precisely  the  same  grounds  that  they  had  then 
organized  for  political  purposes.  At  last, 
strangely  late  in  the  world's  history,  the  ob- 
vious fact  was  perceived  that  no  business  is  so 
essentially  the  public  business  as  the  industry 
and  commerce  on  which  the  people's  livelihood 
depends,  and  that  to  entrust  it  to  private  per- 
sons to  be  managed  for  private  profit,  is  a 
folly  similar  in  kind,  though  vastly  greater 
in  maornitude,  to  that  of  surrenderincr  the 
functions    of    political     government    to    kings 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  79 

and  nobles  to  be  conducted  for  their  per- 
sonal glorification. 

"Such  a  stupendous  change  as  you  de- 
scribe," said  I,  "did  not,  of  course,  take  place 
without  great  bloodshed  and  terrible  con- 
vulsions." 

"  On  the  contrary,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "  there 
was  absolutely  no  violence.  The  change  had 
been  long  foreseen.  Public  opinion  had  be- 
come fully  ripe  for  it,  and  the  whole  mass  of 
the  people  was  behind  it.  There  was  no 
more  possibility  of  opposing  it  by  force  than 
by  argument.  On  the  other  hand  the  popular 
sentiment  toward  the  great  corporations  and 
those  identified  with  them  had  ceased  to  be 
one  of  bitterness,  as  they  came  to  realize  their 
necessity  as  a  link,  a  transition  phase,  in 
the  evolution  of  the  true  industrial  system. 
The  most  violent  foes  of  the  great  private 
monopolies  were  now  forced  to  recognize  how 
invaluable  and  indispensable  had  been  their 
office  in  educating  the  people  up  to  the  point 


8o  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

of  assuming  control  of  their  own  business. 
Fifty  years  before,  the  consolidation  of  the 
industries  of  the  country  under  national  con- 
trol would  have  seemed  a  very  daring  ex- 
periment to  the  most  sanguine.  But  by  a 
series  of  object  lessons,  seen  and  studied  by 
all  men,  the  great  corporations  had  taught 
the  people  an  entirely  new  set  of  ideas  on  this 
subject.  They  had  seen  for  many  years  syn- 
dicates handling  revenues  greater  than  those 
of  states,  and  directing  the  labors  of  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  men  wuth  an  efficiency 
and  economy  unattainable  in  smaller  opera- 
tions. It  had  come  to  be  recognized  as  an 
axiom  that  the  larger  the  business  the  simpler 
the  principles  that  can  be  applied  to  it ;  that,  as 
the  machine  is  truer  than  the  hand,  so  the 
system,  which  in  a  great  concern  does  the 
work  of  the  master's  eye  in  a  small  business, 
turns  out  more  accurate  results.  Thus  it  came 
about  that,  thanks  to  the  corporations  them- 
selves, when  it  was  proposed  that  the  nation 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  8l 

should  assume  their  functions,  the  suggestion 
implied  nothing  which  seemed  impracticable 
even  to  the  timid.  To  be  sure  it  was  a  step  be- 
yond any  yet  taken,  a  broader  generalization, 
but  the  very  fact  that  the  nation  would  be  the 
sole  corporation  in  the  field  would,  it  was  seen, 
relieve  the  undertaking  of  many  difficulties 
with  which  the  pardal  monopolies  had  con- 
tended." 


82  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DR.  LEETE  ceased  speaking,  and  1  re- 
mained silent,  endeavoring  to  form 
some  general  conception  of  the  changes  in 
the  arrangements  of  society  implied  in  the 
tremendous  revolution  which  he  had  de- 
scribed. 

Finally  I  said,  "The  idea  of  such  an  ex- 
tension of  the  functions  of  government  is,  to 
say  the  least,  rather  overwhelming." 

"  Extension  ! "  he  repeated,  "  where  is  the 
extension?" 

"In  my  day,"  I  replied,  "it  was  considered 
that  the  proper  functions  of  government,  strictly 
speaking,  were  limited  to  keeping  the  peace 
and  defending  the  people  against  the  public 
enemy,  that  is,  to  the  military  and  police 
powers." 

"  And,  in  heaven's  name,  who  are  the  pub- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  83 

lie  enemies?"  exclaimed  Dr.  Leete.  "Are 
they  France,  England,  Germany,  or  hunger, 
cold  and  nakedness?  In  your  day  governments 
were  accustomed,  on  the  slightest  international 
misunderstanding,  to  seize  upon  the  bodies 
of  citizens  and  deliver  them  over  by  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  to  death  and  mutilation, 
wasting  their  treasures  the  while  like  water ; 
and  all  this  oftenest  for  no  imaginable  profit 
to  the  victims.  We  have  no  wars  now,  and 
our  governments  no  war  powers,  but  in  order 
to  protect  every  citizen  against  hunger,  cold 
and  nakedness,  and  provide  for  all  his  physi- 
cal and  mental  needs,  the  function  is  assumed 
of  directing  his  industry  for  a  term  of  years. 
No,  Mr.  West,  I  am  sure  on  reflection  you  will 
perceive  that  it  was  in  your  age,  not  in  ours, 
that  the  extension  of  the  functions  of  govern- 
ments was  extraordinary.  Not  even  for  the 
best  ends  would  men  now  allow  their  govern- 
ments such  powers  as  were  then  used  for  the 
most  maleficent." 


84  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

"Leaving  comparisons  aside,"  I  said,  "the 
demagoguery  and  corruption  of  our  public 
men  would  have  been  considered,  in  ni}^  day, 
insuperable  objections  to  any  assumption  by 
government  of  the  charge  of  the  national 
industries.  We  should  have  thoui^ht  that  no 
arrangement  could  be  worse  than  to  entrust 
the  politicians  with  control  of  the  wealth-pro- 
ducing machinery  of  the  country.  Its  ma- 
terial interests  w^ere  quite  too  much  the  football 
of  parties  as  it  was." 

"  No  doubt  you  were  right,"  rejoined  Dr. 
Leete,  "  but  all  that  is  changed  now.  We 
have  no  parties  or  politicians,  and  as  for 
demagoguery,  and  corruption  they,  are  w^ords 
having  only  an  historical  significance." 

"  Human  nature  itself  must  have  changed 
very  much,"  I  said. 

"Not  at  all,"  w^as  Dr.  Leete's  reply,  "but 
the  conditions  of  human  life  have  changed, 
and  with  them  the  motives  of  human  action. 
The  organization  of  society  no  longer  offers  a 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  85 

premium  on  baseness.  But  these  are  matters 
which  you  can  only  understand  as  you  come, 
with  time,  to  know  us  better." 

"But  you  have  not  yet  told  me  how  3'ou 
have  settled  the  labor  problem.  It  is  the  prob- 
lem of  capital  which  we  have  been  discuss- 
ino-,"  I  said.  "After  the  nation  had  assumed 
conduct  of  the  mills,  machinery,  railroads, 
farms,  mines  and  capital  in  general  of  the 
country,  the  labor  question  still  remained. 
In  assuming  the  responsibilities  of  capital,  the 
nation  had  assumed  the  difficulties  of  the  cap- 
italist's position." 

"  The  moment  the  nation  assumed  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  capital,  those  difficulties  van- 
ished," repHed  Dr.  Leete.  "The  national 
organization  of  labor  under  one  direction  was 
the  complete  solution  of  what  was,  in  your 
day  and  under  your  system,  justly  regarded 
as  the  insoluble  labor  problem.  When  the 
nation  became  the  sole  employer,  all  the 
citizens,  by  virtue  of  their  citizenship,  became 


86  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

employees,  to  be  distributed  according  to  the 
needs  of  industry." 

"That  is,"  I  suggested,  "you  have  simply 
applied  the  principle  of  universal  military 
service,  as  it  was  understood  in  our  day,  to 
the  labor  question."' 

"Yes,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  "that  was  something 
which  followed  as  a  matter  of  course  as  soon 
as  the  nation  had  become  the  sole  capitalist. 
The  people  were  already  accustomed  to  the 
idea  that  the  obligation  of  every  citizen,  not 
physically  disabled,  to  contribute  his  military 
services  to  the  defence  of  the  nation,  was 
equal  and  absolute.  That  it. was  equally  the 
duty  of  every  citizen  to  contribute  his  quota 
of  industrial  or  intellectual  services  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  nation,  was  equally  evi- 
dent, though  it  was  not  until  the  nation 
became  the  employer  of  labor  that  citizens 
were  able  to  render  this  sort  of  service  with 
any  pretence  either  of  universality  or  equit}'. 
No  organization  of  labor  was  possible  when 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  87 

tlie  employing  power  was  divided  among 
hundreds  or  thousands  of  individuals  and 
corporations,  between  wdiich  concert  of  any 
kind  was  neither  desired,  nor  indeed  feasible. 
It  constantly  happened  then  that  vast  num- 
bers who  desired  to  labor  could  find  no  oppor- 
tunitv,  and  on  the  other  hand,  those  who 
desired  to  evade  a  part  or  all  of  their  debt 
could  easily  do  so." 

"Service,  now,  I  suppose,  is  compulsory 
upon  all,"  I  suggested. 

"It  is  rather  a  matter  of  course  than  of 
compulsion,"  replied  Dr.  Leete.  "It  is  re- 
garded as  so  absolutely  natural  and  reasonable 
that  the  idea  of  its  being  -compulsory  has 
ceased  to  be  thought  of.  He  would  be  thought 
to  be  an  incredibly  contemptible  person  who 
should  need  compulsion  in  such  a  case.  Nev- 
ertheless, to  speak  of  service  being  compulsory 
would  be  a  weak  way  to  state  its  absolute 
inevitableness.  Our  entire  social  order  is  so 
wholly  based  upon  and  deduced  from  it  that 


88  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

if  it  were  conceivable  that  a  man  could  escape 
it,  he  would  be  left  with  no  possible  way  to 
provide  for  his  existence.  He  would  have 
excluded  himself  from  the  world,  cut  himself 
off  from  his  kind,  in  a  word,  committed 
suicide." 

"  Is  the  term  of  service  in  this  industrial  army 
for  life?" 

"Oh,  no;  it  both  begins  later  and  ends  ear- 
lier than  the  average  working  period  in  your 
day.  Your  workshops  were  filled  ^^'ith  child- 
ren and  old  men,  but  we  hold  the  period  of 
youth  sacred  to  education,  and  the  period  of 
maturity,  when  the  physical  forces  begin  to 
flag,  equally  sacred  to  ease  and  agreeable  re- 
laxation. The  period  of  industrial  service  is 
twenty-four  years,  beginning  at  the  close  of  the 
course  of  education  at  twenty-one  and  termin- 
ating at  forty-five.  iVfter  forty -five,  while  dis- 
charged from  labor,  the  citizen  still  remains 
liable  to  special  calls,  in  case  of  emergencies 
causing  a  sudden  great  increase  in  the  demand 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  89 

for  labor,  till  he  reaches  the  age  of  fift3^-five,  but 
such  calls  are  rarely,  in  fact  almost  never, 
made.  The  fifteenth  day  of  October  of  every 
year  is  what  we  call  Muster  Day,  because 
those  who  have  reached  the  age  of  twenty-one 
are  then  mustered  into  the  industrial  service, 
and  at  the  same  time  those  w^ho,  after  twenty- 
four  years  service,  have  reached  the  age  of 
forty-five  are  honorably  mustered  out.  It  is  the 
great  day  of  the  year  with  us,  whence  we 
reckon  all  other  events,  our  Olympiad,  save 
that  it  is  annual." 


90  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

"  TT  is  after  you  have  mustered  your  indus- 

"'•  trial  army  into  service,"  I  said,  "that  I 
should  expect  the  chief  difficulty  to  arise,  for 
there  its  analogy  with  a  military  army  must 
cease.  Soldiers  have  all  the  same  thing,  and 
a  very  simple  thing,  to  do,  nam^ely,  \o 
practice  the  manual  of  arms,  to  march  and 
stand  guard.  But  the  industrial  army  must 
learn  and  follow  two  or  three  hundred  diverse 
trades  and  avocations.  What  administrative 
talent  can  be  equal  to  determining  wisely  what 
trade  or  business  every  individual  in  a  great 
nation  shall  pursue?" 

"The  administration  has  nothing  to  do  with 
determining  that  point." 

"Who  does  determine  it,  then?"  I  asked. 

"Every  man  for  himself,  in  accordance  with 
his   natural   aptitude,  the  utmost   pains   being 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  9I 

taken  to  enable  him  to  find  out  what  his  natural 
aptitude  really  is.     The  principle  on  which  our 
industrial   army  is   organized   is   that   a   man's 
natural  endowments,  mental  and  physical,  de- 
termine what  he  can  work  at  most  profitablv 
to  the  nation  and  most  satisfactorily  to  himself. 
While  the  obligation  of  service  in  some  form 
is  not  to  be  evaded,  voluntary  election,  sub- 
ject only  to  necessary  regulation,  is  depended 
on  to  determine  the  particular  sort  of  service 
every  man  is  to   render.     As  an   individual's 
satisfaction  during  his  term  of  service  depends 
on  his  having  an  occupation  to  his  taste,  par- 
ents and  teachers  watch  from  early  years  for 
indications   of    special    aptitudes   in   children. 
Manual  industrial  training  is   no  part  of  our 
educational  system,  which  is  directed  to  general 
culture  and  the  humanides,  but  a  theoredcal 
knowledge  of  the  processes  of  the  various  in- 
dustries is  given,  and  our  youth  are  constantly 
encouraged  to  visit  the  workshops,  and  are  fre- 
quently taken  on  long  excursions  to  acquire 


92  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

familiarity  with  special  industries.  Usually, 
long  before  he  is  mustered  into  service,  a  young 
man,  if  he  has  a  taste  for  any  special  pursuit, 
has  found  it  out  and  probably  acquired  a  great 
deal  of  information  about  it.  If,  however,  he 
has  no  special  taste,  and  makes  no  election 
when  opportunity  is  offered,  he  is  assigned  to 
any  avocation  among  those  of  an  unskilled 
character  which  may  be  in  need  of  men." 

"Surely,"  I  said,  "it  can  hardly  be  that  the 
number  of  volunteers  for  any  trade  is  exactly 
the  number  needed  in  that  trade.  It  must  be 
generally  either  under  or  over  the  demand." 

"The  supply  of  volunteers  is  always  ex- 
pected to  fully  equal  the  demand,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete.  "  It  is  the  business  of  the  administration 
to  see  that  this  is  the  case.  The  rate  of  volun- 
teering for  each  trade  is  closely  watched.  If 
there  be  a  noticeably  greater  excess  of  volun- 
teers over  men  needed  in  any  trade,  it  is  in- 
I'erred  that  the  trade  offers  greater  attractions 
than  others.     On  the  other  hand,  if  the  number 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  93 

of  volunteers  for  a  trade  tends  to  drop  below 
the  demand,  it  is  interred  that  it  is  thought  more 
arduous.  It  is  the  business  of  the  administra- 
tion to  seek  constantly  to  equalize  the  attrac- 
tions of  the  trades,  so  far  as  the  conditions  of 
labor  in  them  are  concerned,  so  that  all  trades 
shall  be  equally  attractive  to  persons  having 
natural  tastes  for  them.  This  is  done  by  mak- 
incT  the  hours  of  labor  in  different  trades  to 
differ  according  to  their  arduousness.  The 
lighter  trades,  prosecuted  under  the  most 
agreeable  circumstances,  have  in  this  way  the 
longest  hours,  while  an  arduous  trade,  such  as 
mining,  has  very  short  hours.  There  is  no 
theory,  no  a  priori  vu\e,  by  which  the  respective 
attractiveness  of  industries  is  determined.  The 
administration,  in  taking  burdens  off  one  class 
of  workers  and  adding  them  to  other  classes, 
simply  follows  the  fluctuations  of  opinion  among 
the  workers  themselves  as  indicated  by  the  rate 
of  volunteering.  The  principle  is  that  no  man's 
work  ought  to  be,  on  the  whole,  harder  for  him 


94  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

than  any  other  man's  for  him,  the  workers  them- 
selves to  be  the  judges.  There  are  no  hmits 
to  the  application  of  this  rule.  If  an}'  particu- 
lar occupation  is  in  itself  so  arduous  or  so 
oppressive  that,  in  order  to  induce  volunteers, 
the  day's  work  in  it  had  to  be  reduced  to  ten 
minutes,  it  would  be  done.  If,  even  then,  no 
man  was  willing  to  do  it,  it  would  remain  un- 
done. But  of  course,  in  point  of  fact,  a  m.od- 
erate  reduction  in  the  hours  of  labor,  or  addition 
of  other  privileges,  suffices  to  secure  all  needed 
volunteers  for  any  occupation  necessary  to 
men.  If,  indeed,  the  unavoidable  difficulties 
and  dangers  of  such  a  necessary  pursuit  were 
so  great  that  no  inducement  of  compensating 
advantages  would  overcome  men's  repugnance 
to  it,  the  administration  would  onl}'  need  to 
take  it  out  of  the  common  order  of  occupations 
by  declaring  it  'extra  hazardous,'  and  those 
W' ho  pursued  it  especially  worthy  of  the  national 
gratitude,  to  be  overrun  with  voluntet^rs.  Our 
young  men  are  very  greedy  of  honor,  and  do 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  95 

not  let  slip  such  opportunities.  Of  course  you 
will  see  that  dependence  on  the  purely  volun- 
tary choice  of  avocations  involves  the  abolition 
in  all  of  anything  like  unhygienic  conditions 
or  special  peril  to  life  and  limb.  Health  and 
safety  are  conditions  common  to  all  industries. 
The  nation  does  not  maim  and  slaughter  its 
workmen  by  thousands,  as  did  the  private 
capitalists  and  corporadons  of  your  day." 

"When  there  are  more  who  want  to  enter 
a  particular  trade  than  there  is  room  for,  how 
do  you  decide  between  the  applicants?"  I  in- 
quired. 

"Preference  is  given  to  those  with  the  best 
general  records  in  their  preliminary  service 
as  unskilled  laborers,  and  as  youths  in  their 
educational  course.  No  man,  however,  who 
through  successive  years  remains  persistent 
in  his  desire  to  show  what  he  can  do  at 
any  particular  trade,  is  in  the  end  denied 
an  opportunity.  I  should  add,  in  reference 
to    the    counter-possibility    of    some     sudden 


pg  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

failure  of  volunteers  in  a  particular  trade, 
or  some  sudden  necessity  of  an  increased 
force,  that  the  administration,  while  depending 
on  the  voluntary  system  for  filling  up  the 
trades  as  a  rule,  holds  always  in  reserve  the 
power  to  call  for  special  volunteers,  or  draft 
any  force  needed  from  any  quarter.  Gener- 
ally, however,  all  needs  of  this  sort  can  be 
met  by  details  from,  the^  class  of  unskilled  or 
common  laborers." 

"  How  is  this  class  of  common  laborers 
recruited?"  I  asked.  "Surely  nobody  vol- 
untarily enters  that." 

"  It  is  the  grade  to  which  all  new  recruits 
belong  for  the  first  three  years  of  their  service. 
It  is  not  till  after  this  period,  during  which  he 
is  assignable  to  any  work  at  the  discretion  of 
his  superiors,  that  the  young  man  is  allowed 
to  elect  a  special  avocation.  These  three  years 
of  stringent  discipline  none  are  exempt  from." 

"  As  an  industrial  system,  I  should  think 
this  might  be  extremely  efficient,"  I  said,  "but 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  97 

I  don't  see  that  it  makes  any  provision  for  the 
professional  classes,  the  men  who  serve  the 
nation  with  brains  instead  of  hands.  Of  course 
you  can't  get  along  without  the  brain-workers. 
How,  then,  are  they  selected  from  those  who 
are  to  serve  as  farmers  and  mechanics?  That 
must  require  a  very  delicate  sort  of  sifting 
process,  I  should  say." 

"So  it  does,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "the  most 
delicate  possible  test  is  needed  here,  and  so 
we  leave  the  question  whether  a  man  shall 
be  a  brain  or  hand  worker  entirely  to  him  to 
settle.  At  the  end  of  the  term  of  three  years 
as  a  common  laborer,  which  every  man 
must  serve,  it  is  for  him  to  choose  in  accord- 
ance to  his  natural  tastes  whether  he  will  fit 
himself  for  an  art  or  profession,  or  be  a  farmer 
or  mechanic.  If  he  feels  that  he  can  do  bet- 
ter work  with  his  brains  than  his  muscles  he 
finds  every  facility  provided  for  testing  the 
reality  of  his  supposed  bent,  of  cultivating  it, 
and   if   fit,  of  pursuing    it   as    his    avocation. 


98  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

The  schools  of  technology,  of  medicine,  of 
art,  of  music,  of  histrionics  and  of  higher 
liberal  learning,  are  always  open  to  aspirants 
without  condition." 

"  Are  not  the  schools  flooded  with  young  men 
whose  only  motive  is  to  avoid  work?" 

Dr.  Leete  smiled  a  little  grimly. 

"  No  one  is  at  all  likely  to  enter  the  profes- 
sional schools  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  work, 
I  assure  you,"  he  said.  "  They  are  intended 
for  those  with  special  aptitude  for  the  branches 
they  teach,  and  any  one  without  it  would  find 
it  easier  to  do  double  hours  at  his  trade  than 
try  to  keep  up  with  the  classes.  Of  course 
many  honestly  mistake  their  vocation,  and, 
finding  themselves  unequal  to  the  requirements 
of  the  schools,  drop  out  and  return  to  the  in- 
dustrial service  ;  no  discredit  attaches  to  such 
persons,  for  the  public  policy  is  to  encourage  all 
to  develop  suspected  talents  which  only  actual 
tests  can  prove  the  reality  of.  The  profes- 
sional and  scientific   schools  of  your  day  de- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  99 

pended  on  the  patronage  of  their  pupils  for 
support,  and  the  practice  appears  to  have  been 
common  of  giving  diplomas  to  unfit  persons, 
who  afterwards  found  their  way  into  the  pro- 
fessions. Our  schools  are  national  institutions, 
and  to  have  passed  their  tests  is  a  proof  of 
special  abilities  not  to  be  questioned." 

"This  opportunity  for  a  professional  train- 
ing," the  doctor  continued,  "  remains  open  to 
every  man  till  the  age  of  thirty-five  is  reached, 
after  which  students  are  not  received,  as  there 
would  remain  too  brief  a  period  before  the  age 
of  discharge  in  w^hich  to  serve  the  nation  in  their 
professions.  In  your  day  young  men  had  to 
choose  their  professions  very  young,  and  there- 
fore, in  a  large  proportion  of  instances,  wholly 
mistook  their  vocations.  It  is  recognized  now- 
adays that  the  natural  aptitudes  of  some  are 
later  than  those  of  others  in  developing,  and 
therefore,  while  the  choice  of  a  profession  may 
be  made  as  early  as  twenty-four,  it  remains 
open  for  eleven  years  longer.     I  should  add  that 


lOO  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

the  right  of  transfer,  under  proper  restrictions, 
from  a  trade  first  chosen  to  one  preferred  later 
in  Hfe,  also  remains  open  to  a  man  till  thirt}^- 
five." 

A  question  which  had  a  dozen  times  before 
been  on  my  lips,  now  found  utterance,  a  ques- 
tion which  touched  upon  what,  in  my  time, 
had  been  regarded  the  most  vital  difhculty  in 
the  way  of  any  final  settlement  of  the  industrial 
problem.  "It  is  an  extraordinary  thing,"  I 
said,  "that  you  should  not  yet  have  said  a  word 
about  the  method  of  adjusting  wages.  Since 
the  nation  is  the  sole  employer  the  government 
must  fix  the  rate  of  wages  and  determine  just 
how  much  ever3^body  shall  earn,  from  the  doc- 
tors to  the  diggers.  All  I  can  sa}^  is,  that  this 
plan  would  never  have  w^orked  with  us,  and  I 
don't  see  how  it  can  now  unless  human  nature 
has  changed.  In  my  day,  nobody  was  satis- 
fied wdth  his  w^ages  or  salary.  Even  if  he 
felt  he  received  enough  he  was  sure  his  neigh- 
bor had  too  much,  which  was  as  bad.     If  the 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  lOI 

universal  discontent  on  this  subject,  instead  of 
being  dissipated  in  curses  and  strikes  directed 
against  innumerable  employers,  could  have 
been  concentrated  upon  one,  and  that  the  gov- 
ernment, the  strongest  ever  devised  would  not 
have  seen  two  pay  days." 

Dr.  Leete  laughed  heartil}^ 

"Very  true,  very  true,"  he  said,  "a  general 
strike  would  most  probably  have  follow^ed  the 
first  pay  day,  and  a  strike  directed  against  a 
government  is  a  revolution." 

"How,  then,  do  you  avoid  a  revolution  every 
pay  day?"  I  demanded.  "Has  some  prodig- 
ious philosopher  devised  a  new  system  of  calcu- 
lus satisfactory  to  all  for  determining  the  exact 
and  comparative  value  of  all  sorts  of  service, 
whether  by  brawn  or  brain,  by  hand  or  voice, 
by  ear  or  eye?  Or  has  human  nature  itself 
changed,  so  that  no  man  looks  upon  his  owm 
things  but  *  every  man  on  the  things  of  his 
neighbor?  '  One  or  the  other  of  these  events 
must  be  the  explanation." 


I02  LOOKING   BACKWARD, 

"  Neither  one  nor  the  other,  however,  is," 
was  my  host's  laughing  response.  "  And  now, 
Mr.  West,"  he  continued,  "you  must  remem- 
ber that  you  are  my  patient  as  well  as  my 
guest,  and  permit  me  to  prescribe  sleep  for 
you  before  we  have  any  more  conversation. 
It  is  after  three  o'clock." 

"The  prescription  is,  no  doubt,  a  wise  one," 
I  said.  "I  only  hope  it  can  be  filled." 

"I  will  see  to  that,"  the  doctor  replied,  and 
he  did,  for  he  gave  me  a  wine  glass  of  some- 
thing or  other  which  sent  me  to  sleep  as  soon 
as  my  head  touched  the  pillow. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  103 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

"\  1  7"HEN  I  awoke  I  felt  greatly  refreshed 
and    lay    a    considerable    time    in    a 
dozing  state,  enjoying  the  sensation  of  bodily 
comfort.     The    experiences   of  the    day   pre- 
vious, my  waking  to  find  myself  in  the  year 
2000,  the  sight  of  the  new  Boston,  my  host 
and    his  family,   and    the  wonderful    things  I 
had   heard,  were   a  blank  in  my  memory.     I 
thought  I  was   in   my  bed-chamber  at  home, 
and  the   half  dreaming,  half  w^aking   fancies 
which  passed  before   my  mind  related  to  the 
incidents  and  experiences  of  my  former  life. 
Dreamily  I  reviewed  the  incidents  of  Decora- 
tion Day,  my  trip  in  company  with  Edith  and 
her  parents  to  Mount  Auburn,  and  my  dining 
with  them  on  our  return  to  the  city.    I  recalled 
how  extremely  well    Edith    had   looked,  and 
from  that  fell   to   thinking  of  our   marriage; 


I04  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

but  scarcely  had  my  imagination  begun  to  de- 
velop this  delightful  theme  than  my  waking 
dream  was  cut  short  by  the  recollection  of  the 
letter  I  had  received  the  night  before  from  the 
builder,  announcing  that  the  new  strikes  might 
postpone  indefinitely  the  completion  of  the 
new  house.  The  chagrin  which  this  recollec- 
tion brought  with  it  effectually  roused  me. 
I  remembered  that  I  had  an  appointment 
with  the  builder  at  eleven  o'clock,  to  dis- 
cuss the  strike,  and  opening  my  eyes,  looked 
up  at  the  clock  at  the  foot  of  my  bed  to  see 
what  time  it  was.  But  no  clock  met  my  glance, 
and  what  was  more,  I  instantly  perceived  that 
I  w^as  not  in  my  room.  Starting  up  on  my 
couch  I  stared  wdldly  around  the  strange  apart- 
ment. 

I  think  it  must  have  been  many  seconds  that  I 
sat  up  thus  in  bed  staring  about,  without  being 
able  to  regain  the  clew  to  my  personal  identity. 
I  was  no  more  able  to  distinguish  myself  from 
pure  being  during  those  moments  than  we  may 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 05 

suppose  a  soul  in  the  rough  to  be  before  it  has 
received  the  ear-marks,  the  individualizing 
touches  which  make  it  a  person.  Strange  that 
the  sense  of  this  inabihty  should  be  such  an- 
guish, but  so  we  are  constituted.  There  are 
no  words  for  the  mental  torture  I  endured 
during  this  helpless,  eyeless  groping  for  my- 
self in  a  boundless  void.  No  other  experi- 
ence of  the  mind  gives  probably  an3^thing  like 
the  sense  of  absolute  intellectual  arrest  from 
the  loss  of  a  mental  fulcrum,  a  starting  point 
of  thought,  which  comes  during  such  a  momen- 
tary obscuration  of  the  sense  of  one's  identity. 
I  trust  I  may  never  know  what  it  is  again. 

I  do  not  know  how  long  this  condition  had 
lasted,  —  it  seemed  an  interminable  time,  — 
when,  like  a  flash,  the  recollection  of  every- 
thing came  back  to  me.  I  remembered  who 
and  where  I  was,  and  how  I  had  come  here, 
and  that  these  scenes  as  of  the  life  of  yesterday 
which  had  been  passing  before  my  mind  con- 
cerned a  generation  long,  long  ago  mouldered 


I06  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

to  dust.  Leaping  from  bed,  I  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  room  clasping  my  temples  with 
all  my  might  between  my  hands  to  keep  them 
from  bursting.  Then  I  fell  prone  on  the  couch 
and,  burying  my  face  in  the  pillow,  lay  with- 
out motion.  The  reaction  which  was  inevita- 
ble, from  the  mental  elation,  the  fever  of  the 
intellect  that  had  been  the  first  effects  of  my 
tremendous  experience,  had  arrived.  The  emo- 
tional crisis,  which  had  awaited  with  the  full 
realization  of  my  actual  position  and  all  that  it 
implied,  was  upon  me,  and  with  set  teeth  and  la- 
boring chest,  gripping  the  bedstead  with  frenzied 
strength,  I  lay  there  and  fought  for  my  sanity. 
In  my  mind,  all  had  broken  loose,  habits  of 
feeling,  associations  of  thought,  ideas  of  per- 
sons and  things,  all  had  dissolved  and  lost 
coherence  and  were  seething  together  in  ap- 
parently irretrievable  chaos.  There  were  no 
rallying  points,  nothing  was  left  stable.  There 
only  remained  the  will,  and  was  any  human 
will  strong  enough  to  say  to  such  a  weltering 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  107 

sea,  "Peace,  be  still."  I  dared  not  think. 
Every  effort  to  reason  upon  what  had  befallen 
me,  and  realize  what  it  implied,  set  up  an  in- 
tolerable swimming  of  the  brain.  The  idea 
that  I  was  two  persons,  that  m}'  identity  was 
double,  began  to  fascinate  me  with  its  simple 
solution  of  my  experience. 

I  knew  that  I  was  on  the  verge  of  losing  my 
mental  balance.  If  I  lay  there  thinking,  I  was 
doomed.  Diversion  of  some  sort  I  m.ust  have, 
at  least  the  diversion  of  physical  exertion.  I 
sprang  up  and,  hastily  dressing,  opened  the 
door  of  my  room  and  went  down  stairs.  The 
hour  was  very  early,  it  being  not  yet  fairly 
light,  and  I  found  no  one  in  the  lower  part  of 
the  house.  There  was  a  hat  in  the  hall,  and, 
opening  the  front  door,  which  was  fastened 
wdth  a  slightness  indicating  that  burglary  was 
not  among  the  perils  of  the  modern  Boston,  I 
found  myself  on  the  street.  For  two  hours  I 
walked  or  ran  through  the  streets  of  the  city, 
visiting  most  quarters  of  the  peninsular  part  of 


I08  LOOKING    BACKWARD. 

the  town.  None  but  an  antiquarian  who  knows 
something  of  the  contrast  which  the  Boston  of 
to-day  offers  to  the  Boston  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  can  begin  to  appreciate  what  a  series 
of  bewildering  surprises  I  underwent  during 
that  time.  Viewed  from  the  housetop  the  day 
before,  the  city  had  indeed  appeared  strange 
to  me,  but  tliat  was  only  in  its  general  aspect. 
How  complete  the  change  had  been  I  first -real- 
ized now^  that  I  w^alked  the  streets.  The  few 
old  landmarks  which  still  remained  only  inten- 
sified this  effect,  for  without  them  I  might  have 
imagined  myself  in  a  foreign  town.  A  man 
may  leave  his  native  cit}'  in  childhood,  and 
return  fifty  ^/ears  later,  perhaps,  to  find  it 
transformed  in  many  features.  He  is  aston- 
ished, but  he  is  not  bewildered.  He  is  aware 
of  a  great  lapse  of  time,  and  of  changes  like- 
wise occurring  in  himself  meanwhile.  He  but 
dimly  recalls  the  city  as  he  knew  it  w^hen  a 
child.  But  remember  that  there  was  no  sense 
of  any  lapse  of  time  with  me.     So  far  as  my 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  109 

consciousness  was  concerned,  it  was  but  yes- 
terday, but  a  few  hours,  since  I  had  walked 
these  streets  in  which  scarcely  a  feature  had 
escaped  a  complete  metamorphosis.  The 
mental  image  of  the  old  city  was  so  fresh  and 
strong  that  it  did  not  yield  to  the  impression 
of  the  actual  city,  but  contended  with  it,  so  that 
it  was  first  one  and  then  the  other  which  seemed 
the  more  unreal.  There  was  nothing  I  saw 
which  was  not  blurred  in  this  way,  like  the 
faces  of  a  composite  photograph. 

Finally  I  stood  again  at  the  door  of  the 
house  from  which  I  had  come  out.  My  feet 
must  have  instinctively  brought  me  back  to  the 
site  of  my  old  home,  for  I  had  no  clear  idea  of 
returning  thither.  It  was  no  more  homelike 
to  me  than  any  other  spot  in  this  city  of  a 
strange  generation,  nor  were  its  inmates  less 
utterly  and  necessarily  strangers  than  all  the 
other  men  and  women  now  on  the  earth. 
Had  the  door  of  the  house  been  locked,  I 
should  have  been  reminded  by  its  resistance 


no  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

tliat  I  had  no  object  in  entering,  and  turned 
away,  but  it  yielded  to  my  hand,  and  advanc- 
ing with  uncertain  steps  through  the  hall,  I 
entered  one  of  the  apartments  opening  from  it. 
Throwing  myself  into  a  chair,  I  covered  mv 
burning  eyeballs  with  my  hands  to  shut  out  the 
horror  of  strangeness.  My  mental  confusion 
was  so  intense  as  to  produce  actual  nausea. 
The  anguish  of  those  moments,  during  which 
my  brain  seemed  melting,  or  the  abjectness  of 
my  sense  of  helplessness,  how  can  I  describe? 
In  my  despair  I  groaned  aloud.  I  began  to 
feel  that  unless  some  help  should  come,  I  was 
about  to  lose  my  mind.  And  just  then  it  did 
come.  I  heard  the  rustle  of  drapery,  and 
looked  up.  Edith  Leete  was  standing  before 
me.  Her  beautiful  face  was  full  of  the  most 
poignant  sympathy. 

"Oh,  what  is  the  matter,  Mr.  West?"  she 
said..  "I  was  here  when  you  came  in.  I  saw 
how  dreadfully  distressed  you  looked,  and 
when  I  heard   you   groan,  I    could  not  keep 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  Ill 

silent.     What  has  happened  to  you?     Where 
have   you    been?     Can't    I    do  something  for 


vou  r 


P" 


Perhaps  she  involuntarily  held  out  her 
hands  in  a  gesture  of  compassion  as  she 
spoke.  At  any  rate  I  had  caught  them  in 
my  own  and  was  clinging  to  them  with  an  im- 
pulse as  instinctive  as  that  wdiich  prompts  the 
drow^ning  man  to  seize  upon  and  cling  to  the 
rope  which  is  thrown  him  as  he  sinks  for  the 
last  time.  As  I  looked  up  into  her  compas- 
sionate face  and  her  eyes  moist  with  pity,  my 
brain  ceased  to  whirl.  The  tender  human 
sympathy  which  thrilled  in  the  soft  pressure 
of  her  fingers  had  brought  me  the  support  I 
needed.  Its  effect  to  calm  and  soothe  w^as 
like  that  of  some  wonder-working  elixir. 

"God bless  you,"  I  said,  after  a  few  moments. 
"  He  must  have  sent  }'ou  to  me  just  now.  I  think 
I  was  in  danger  of  going  crazy  if  you  had  not 
come."     At  this  the  tears  came  into  her  eyes. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  West !  "  she  cried.     "  How  heart- 


112  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

less  you  must  have  thought  us  !  How  could  we 
leave  you  to  yourself  so  long  I  But  it  is  over 
now,  is  it  not?     You  are  better,  surely." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  ''thanks  to  you.  If  you  will 
not  go  away  quite  yet,  I  shall  be  myself  soon." 

"Indeed  I  will  not  go  away,"  she  said,  with 
a  little  quiver  of  the  face,  more  expressive 
of  her  sympathy  than  a  volume  of  words. 
"You  must  not  think  us  so  heartless  as  we 
seemed  in  leaving  you  so  b}^  yourself.  I 
scarcely  slept  last  night,  for  thinking  how 
strange  your  waking  w^ould  be  this  morning ; 
but  father  said  you  would  sleep  till  late.  He 
said  that  it  would  be  better  not  to  show  too 
much  sympathy  with  you  at  first,  but  to  try  to 
divert  your  thoughts  and  make  you  feel  that 
you  were  among  friends.  " 

"You  have  indeed  made  me  feel  that,"  I 
answered.  "  But  you  see  it  is  a  good  deal  of  a 
jolt  to  drop  a  hundred  years,  and  although  I 
did  not  seem  to  feel  it  so  much  last  night,  I 
have  had  very  odd  sensations  this  morning." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  113 

While  I  held  her  hands  and  kept  my  eyes  on 

her  face,  I  could  already  even  jest  a  little  at 

my  plight. 

"  No   one  thought  of  such  a  thing  as  your 

going  out  in  the   city   alone   so  early  in  the 

morning,"   she    went    on.     "  Oh,    Mr.    West, 

where  have  you  been  ?  " 

Then  I  told  her  of  my  morning's  experience 
from  my  first  waking  till  the  moment  I  had 
looked  up  to  see  her  before  me,  just  as  I  have 
told  it  here.  She  was  overcome  by  distressful 
pity  during  the  recital,  and,  though  I  had  re- 
leased one  of  her  hands,  did  not  try  to  take 
from  me  the  other,  seeing,  no  doubt,  how  much 
good  it  did  me  to  hold  it.  "I  can  think  a  little 
what  this  feeling  must  have  been  like,"  she 
said.  "It  must  have  been  terrible.  And  to 
think  you  were  left  alone  to  struggle  with  it ! 
Can  3^ou  ever  forgive  us  ?  " 

"But  it  is  gone  now.     You  have  driven  it 
quite  away  for  the  present,"  I  said. 

"You  will  not  let  it  return  again,"  she  que- 
ried anxiously. 


114  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

"I  can't  quite  say  that,"  I  replied.  "It 
might  be  too  early  to  say  that,  considering 
how  strange  everything  will  still  be  to  me." 

"  But  you  will  not  try  to  contend  with  it  alone 
again,  at  least,"  she  persisted.  "  Promise  that 
you  will  come  to  us,  and  let  us  sympathize 
with  you,  and  try  to  help  you.  Perhaps 
we  can't  do  much,  but  it  will  surely  be 
better  than  to  try  to  bear  such  feelings  alone." 

"I  will  come  to  you  if  you  w^ill  let  me," 
I  said. 

"Oh  yes,  yes,  I  beg  you  w^ill,"  she  said 
eagerly.  "  I  would  do  anything  to  help  you 
that  I  could." 

"All  you  need  do  is  to  be  sorry  for  me,  as 
you  seem  to  be  now,"  I  replied. 

"It  is  understood,  then,"  she  said,  smiling 
with  wet  eyes,  "that  you  are  to  come  and  tell 
me  next  tim.e,  and  not  run  all  over  Boston 
among  strangers." 

This  assumption  that  we  were  not  strangers 
seemed  scarcely  strange,  so  near  within  these 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I15 

few  minutes  had  my  trouble  and  her  sympa- 
thetic tears  brought  us. 

"I  will  promise,  when  you  come  to  me," 
she  added,  with  an  expression  of  charm- 
ing archness,  passing,  as  she  continued,  into 
one  of  enthusiasm,  "to  seem  as  sorry  for  you 
as  you  wish,  but  you  must  not  for  a  moment 
suppose  that  I  am  really  sorry  for  you  at  all, 
or  that  I  think  you  will  long  be  sorry  for  your- 
self. I  know  as  well  as  I  know  that  the  world 
now  is  heaven  compared  with  what  it  was  in 
your  day,  that  the  only  feeling  you  w^ill  have 
after  a  little  W'hile  will  be  one  of  thankfulness 
to  God  that  your  life  in  that  aije  was  so 
strangely  cut  off,  to  be  returned  to  you  in 
this." 


Il6  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

I  "\R.  and  Mrs.  Leete  were  evidently  not  a 
-■-^  little  startled  to  learn,  when  they  pres- 
ently appeared,  that  I  had  been  all  over  the 
city  alone  that  morning,  and  it  was  apparent 
that  they  were  agreeably  surprised  to  see  that  I 
seemed  so  little  agitated  after  the  experience. 

"Your  stroll  could  scarcely  have  failed  to 
be  a  very  interesting  one,"  said  Mrs.  Leete,  as 
we  sat  down  to  table  soon  after.  "  You  must 
have  seen  a  good  many  new  things." 

"  I  saw  very  little  that  was  not  new,"  I  re- 
plied. "  But  I  think  what  surprised  me  as 
much  as  anything,  was  not  to  lind  any  stores 
on  Washington  street,  or  any  banks  on  State. 
What  have  you  done  with  the  merchants  and 
bankers?  Hung  them  all,  perhaps,  as  the 
anarchists  wanted  to  do  in  my  day?  " 

"Not    so    bad  as  that,"  replied   Dr.  Leete. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  II7 

*'We  have  simply  dispensed  with  them. 
Their  functions  are  obsolete  in  the  modern 
world." 

"  Who  sells  you  things  when  you  want  to 
buy  them?"  I  inquired. 

"There  is  neither  selling  nor  buying  nowa- 
da3^s  ;  the  distribution  of  goods  is  effected  in 
another  way.  As  to  the  bankers,  having  no 
money,  we  have  no  use  for  those  gentry." 

"Miss  Leete,"  said  I,  turning  to  Edith,  "I 
am  afraid  that  your  father  is  making  sport  of 
me.  I  don't  blame  him,  for  the  temptation  my 
innocence  offers  must  be  extraordinary.  But, 
really,  there  are  limits  to  my  credulity  as  to 
possible  alterations  in  the  social  system." 

"Father  has  no  idea  of  jesting,  I  am  sure," 
she  replied,  with  a  reassuring  smile. 

The  conversation  took  another  turn  then, 
the  point  of  ladies'  fashions  in  the  nineteenth 
century  being  raised,  if  I  remember  rightly,  by 
Mrs.  Leete,  and  it  was  not  till  after  breakfast, 
when    the   doctor   had   invited   me   up   to   the 


Il8  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

housetop,  which  appeared  to  be  a  favorite  re- 
sort of  his,  that  he  recurred  to  the  subject. 

"  You  were  surprised,"  he  said,  *'  at  my  saying 
that  we  got  along  without  mone}^  or  trade,  but 
a  moment's  reflection  will  show  that  trade  ex- 
isted and  money  was  needed  in  your  day  simply 
because  the  business  of  production  was  left  in 
private  hands,  and  that,  consequently,  they  are 
superfluous  now." 

"I  do  not  at  once  see  how  that  follows,"  I 
replied.  "It  is  very  simple,*'  said  Dr.  Leete. 
"When  innumerable,  different,  and  independ- 
ent persons  produced  the  various  things  need- 
ful to  life  and  comfort,  endless  exchanges  be- 
tween individuals  were  requisite  in  order  that 
they  might  supply  themselves  with  what  they 
desired.  These  exchanges  constituted  trade, 
and  money  was  essential  as  their  medium. 
But  as  soon  as  the  nation  became  the  sole  pro- 
ducer of  all  sorts  of  commodities,  there  was 
no  need  of  exchanges  between  indivickials  that 
they   might  get  what  they  required.     E\'cry- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  119 

thing  was  procurable  from  one  source,  and 
nothing  could  be  procured  anywhere  else.  A 
system  of  direct  distribution  from  the  national 
storehouses  took  the  place  of  trade,  and  for 
this  money  was  unnecessar}^." 

"How    is    this    distribution    managed?"    I 
asked. 

"On  the  simplest  possible  plan,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete.     "  A  credit  corresponding  to  his  share  of 
the  annual  product  of  the  nation  is  given  to 
every  citizen  on  the  public  books  at  the  beo-in- 
ing  of  each  year,  and  a  credit  card  issued  him 
with   which   he   procures  at  the  public  store- 
houses, found  in  every  community,  whatever 
he  desires  whenever  he  desires  it.     This  ar- 
rangement you   will  see    totally   obviates   the 
necessity  for  business  transactions  of  any  sort 
betw^een  individuals  and  consumers.     Perhaps 
you  would   like  to  see  what  our  credit-cards 
are  like." 

"You  observe,"  he  pursued  as  I  was  curious- 
ly examining  the  piece  of  pasteboard  he  crave 


120  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

me,  "that this  card  is  issued  for  a  certain  num- 
ber of  dollars.  We  have  kept  the  old  word, 
but  not  the  substance.  The  term,  as  we  use 
it,  answers  to  no  real  thing,  but  merely  serves 
as  an  algebraical  symbol  for  comparing  the 
values  of  products  with  one  another.  For 
this  purpose  they  are  all  priced  in  dollars  and 
cents,  just  as  in  your  day.  The  value  of  what 
I  procure  on  this  card  is  checked  ofl^  by  the 
clerk,  who  pricks  out  of  these  tiers  of  squares 
the  price  of  what  I  order." 

"  If  you  wanted  to  buy  something  of  your 
neighbor,  could  you  transfer  part  of  3'our 
credit  to  him  as  consideration  ?"  I  inquired. 

"In  the  first  place,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "our 
neighbors  have  nothing  to  sell  us,  but  in  any 
event  our  credit  would  not  be  transferable, 
being  strictly  personal.  Before  the  nation 
could  even  think  of  honoring  any  such  trans- 
fer as  you  speak  of,  it  would  be  bound  to 
inquire  into  all  the  circumstances  of  the  trans- 
action, so  as  to  be  able  to  guarantee  its  abso- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  121 

lute  equity.  It  would  have  been  reason 
enough,  had  there  been  no  other,  for  abolish 
ing  money,  that  its  possession  was  no  indica- 
tion of  riirhtful  title  to  it.  In  the  hands  of  the 
man  who  had  stolen  it  or  murdered  for  it,  it 
was  as  good  as  in  those  which  had  earned  it 
by  industry.  People  nowadays  interchange 
gifts  and  favors  out  of  friendship,  but  buying 
and  selling  is  considered  absolutely  incon- 
sistent with  the  mutual  benevolence  and  dis- 
interestedness which  should  prevail  between 
citizens  and  the  sense  of  community  of  inter- 
est which  supports  our  social  system.  Accord- 
ing to  our  ideas,  buying  and  selling  is  essen- 
tially anti-social  in  all  its  tendencies.  It  is  an 
education  in  self-seeking  at  the  expense  of 
others,  and  no  society  whose  citizens  are 
trained  in  such  a  school  can  possibl}^  rise 
above  a  very  low  grade  of  civilization." 

"  What  if  you  have  to  spend  more  than  your 
card  in  any  one  year?  "  I  asked. 

"The   provision   is    so    ample   that  we  are 


122  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

more  likely  not  to  spend  it  all,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete.  "But  if  extraordinary  expenses  should 
exhaust  it,  we  can  obtain  a  limited  advance 
on  the  next  year's  credit,  though  this  practice 
is  not  encouraged,  and  a  heavy  discount  is 
charged  to  check  it." 

"  If  you  don't  spend  your  allowance,  I  sup- 
pose it  accumulates?  " 

"  That  is  also  permitted  to  a  certain  extent, 
when  a  special  outlay  is  anticipated.  But 
unless  notice  to  the  contrary  is  given,  it  is  pre- 
sumed tiiat  the  citizen  who  does  not  fully 
expend  his  credit  did  not  have  occasion  to  do 
so,  and  the  balance  is  turned  into  the  general 
surplus." 

''  Such  a  system  does  not  encourage  saving 
habits  on  the  part  of  citizens,"  I  said. 

"It  is  not  intended  to,"  was  the  reply. 
"  The  nation  is  rich,  and  does  not  wish  the  peo- 
ple to  deprive  themselves  of  any  good  thing. 
In  your  day,  men  were  bound  to  lay  up  goods 
and    money    against    coming    failure    of    the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  1 23 

means  of  support  and  for  their  children.  This 
necessity  made  parsimony  a  virtue.  But  now 
it  would  have  no  such  laudable  object,  and, 
having  lost  its  utility,  it  has  ceased  to  be 
regarded  as  a  virtue.  No  man  an}^  more  has 
any  care  for  the  morrow^  either  for  himself  or 
his  children,  for  the  nation  guarantees  the 
nurture,  education,  and  comfortable  main- 
tenance of  every  citizen,  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave." 

"That  is  a  sweeping  guarantee  !  "  I  said. 
"What  certainty  can  there  be  that  the  value 
of  a  man's  labor  will  recompense  the  nation 
for  its  outlay  on  him?  On  the  w^hole,  society 
may  be  able  to  support  all  its  members,  but 
some  must  earn  less  than  enough  for  their  sup- 
port, and  others  more ;  and  that  brings  us 
back  once  more  to  the  wages  question,  on 
which  you  have  hitherto  yet  said  nothing. 
It  was  at  just  this  point,  if  you  remember, 
that  our  talk  ended  last  evening ;  and  I  say 
again,  as  I  did  then,  that  here  I  should  sup- 


124  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

pose  a  national  industrial  system  like  yours 
would  find  its  main  difliculty.  How,  I  ask 
once  more,  can  3'ou  adjust  satisfactorily  the 
comparative  wages  or  remuneration  of  the 
multitude  of  avocations,  so  unlike  and  so  in- 
commensurable, which  are  necessary  for  the 
service  of  society?  In  our  day  the  market 
rate  determined  the  price  of  labor  of  all  sorts, 
as  well  as  of  goods.  The  employer  paid  as 
little  as  he  could,  and  the  worker  got  as  much. 
It  was  not  a  pretty  system  ethically,  I  admit ; 
but  it  did,  at  least,  furnish  us  a  rough  and 
ready  formula  for  settling  a  question  which 
must  be  settled  ten  thousand  times  a  day  if 
the  world  was  ever  going  to  get  forward. 
There  seemed  to  us  no  other  practicable  way 
of  doing  it." 

"Yes,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "itwas  the  only 
practicable  way  under  a  system  which  made  the 
interests  of  ever}^  individual  antagonistic  to 
those  of  every  other ;  but  it  would  have  been 
a  pity  if  humanit}^  could  never  have   devised 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  1 25 

a  better  plan,  for  yours  was  simply  the  appli- 
cation to  the  mutual  relations  of  men  of  the 
devil's  maxim,  'Your  necessity  is  my  oppor- 
tunity.' The  reward  of  any  service  depended 
not  upon  its  difficulty,  danger,  or  hardship, 
for    throup-hout   the    world    it  seems    that    tlie 

o 

most  perilous,  severe,  and  repulsive  labor  was 
done  by  the  worst  paid  classes ;  but  solely 
upon  the  strait  of  those  who  needed  the 
service." 

"x\ll  that  is  conceded,"  I  said.  "But,  with 
all  its  defects,  the  plan  of  settling  prices  by  the 
market  rate  was  a  practical  plan  ;  and  I  cannot 
conceive  what  satisfactorj^  substitute  you  can 
have  devised  for  it.  The  government  being 
the  only  possible  employer,  there  is,  of  course, 
no  labor  market  or  market  rate.  Washes  of 
all  sorts  must  be  arbitrarily  lixed  by  the  gov- 
ernment. I  cannot  imagine  a  more  complex 
and  delicate  function  than  that  must  be,  or 
one,  however  performed,  more  certain  to  breed 
universal   dissatisfaction." 


126  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  replied  Dr.  Leete, 
"but  I  think  you  exaggerate  the  difficulty. 
Suppose  a  board  of  fairly  sensible  men  v/ere 
charged  with  settling  the  wages  for  all  sorts  of 
trades  under  a  system  which,  like  ours,  guar- 
anteed employment  to  all,  while  permitting  the 
choice  of  avocations.  Don't  you  see  that,  how- 
ever unsatisfactory  the  first  adjustment  might 
be,  the  mistakes  would  soon  correct  them- 
selves? The  favored  trades  w^ould  have  too 
many  volunteers,  and  those  discriminated 
aa^ainst  would  lack  them  till  the  errors  were 
set  right.  But  this  is  aside  from  the  purpose, 
for,  though  this  plan  would,  I  fancy,  be  prac- 
ticable enough,  it  is  no  part  of  our  system." 

"How,  then,  do  you  regulate  w^ages?"  I 
once  more  asked. 

Dr.  Leete  did  not  reply  till  after  several 
moments  of  meditative  silence.  "I  know,  of 
course,"  he  finally  said,  "  enough  of  the  old 
order  of  things  to  understand  just  what  you 
mean  by  that  question ;   and  yet  the  present 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  127 

order  is  so  utterly  diiferent  at  this  point  that  I 
am  a  little  at  loss  how  to  answer  you  best. 
You  ask  me  how  we  regulate  wages  :  I  can 
only  reply  that  there  is  no  idea  in  the  modern 
social  economy  which  at  all  corresponds  with 
what  was  meant  by  wages  in  your  day." 

"I  suppose  you  mean  that  you  have  no 
money  to  pay  wages  in,"  said  I.  "But  the 
credit  given  the  worker  at  the  government 
storehouse  answers  to  his  wages  with  us. 
How  is  the  amount  of  the  credit  given  respec- 
tively to  the  workers  in  different  lines  deter- 
mined ?  By  what  title  does  the  individual 
claim  his  particular  share?  What  is  the  basis 
of  allotment  ?  " 

"His  title,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "is  his  hu- 
manity. The  basis  of  his  claim  is  the  fact 
that  he  is  a  man." 

"The  fact  that  he  is   a  man!"   I  repeated, 
incredulously.     "Do  you  possibly   mean  that 
all  have  the  same  share?  " 
"Most  assuredly." 


128  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

The  readers  of  this  book  never  having  prac- 
tically known  any  other  arrangement,  or  per- 
haps very  carefully  considered  the  historical 
accounts  of  former  epochs  in  which  a  very 
different  system  prevailed,  cannot  be  expected 
to  appreciate  the  stupor  of  amazement  into 
which  Dr.  Leete's  simple  statement  plunged 
me. 

"You  see,"  he  said,  smiling,  "that  it  is  not 
merely  that  we  have  no  money  to  pay  wages 
in,  but,  as  I  said,  we  have  nothing  at  all 
answering  to  your  idea  of  wages." 

By  this  time  I  had  pulled  myself  together 
sufficiently  to  voice  some  of  the  criticisms 
which,  man  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  I  was, 
came  uppermost  in  my  mind,  upon  this  to  me 
astounding  arrangement.  "  Some  men  do 
twice  the  w^ork  of  others  !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  Are 
the  clever  workmen  content  with  a  plan  that 
ranks  them  with  the  indifferent?" 

"  We  leave  no  possible  ground  for  any  com- 
plaint  of  injustice,"  replied    Dr.    Leete,  "by 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 29 

requiring  precisely  the  same  measure  of  ser- 
vice from  all." 

"How  can  you  do  that,  I  should  like  to 
know,  when  no  two  men's  powers  are  the 
same?" 

"  Nothing  could  be  simpler,"  was  Dr.  Leete's 
reply.  "We  require  of  each  that  he  shall 
make  the  same  effort ;  that  is,  we  demand 
of  him  the  best  service  it  is  in  his  power  to 
give." 

"And  supposing  all  do  the  best  they  can," 
I  answered,  "the  amount  of  the  product  re- 
sulting is  twice  greater  from  one  man  than 
from  another." 

"Very  true,"  replied  Dr.  Leete  ;  "but  the 
amount  of  the  resulting  product  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  the  question,  which  is 
one  of  desert.  Desert  is  a  moral  question, 
and  the  amount  of  the  product  a  material 
quantity.  It  would  be  an  extraordinary  sort 
of  logic  which  should  try  to  determine  a  moral 
question  by  a  material  standard.     The  amount 


130  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

of  the  effort  alone  is  pertinent  to  the  question 
ot"  desert.  All  men  who  do  their  best,  do  the 
same.  A  man's  endowments,  however  god- 
like, merely  fix  the  measure  of  his  duty.  The 
man  of  great  endowments  who  does  not  do  all 
he  might,  though  he  may  do  more  than  a  man 
of  small  endowments  who  does  his  best,  is 
deemed  a  less  deserving  worker  than  the 
latter,  and  dies  a  debtor  to  his  fellows.  The 
Creator  sets  men's  tasks  for  them  by  the 
faculties  he  gives  them  ;  we  simply  exact  their 
fulfilment." 

"No  doubt  that  is  very  fine  philosophy,"  I 
said ;  "  nevertheless  it  seems  hard  that  the 
man  who  produces  twice  as  much  as  an- 
other, even  if  both  do  their  best,  should  have 
only  the  same  share." 

"Does  it,  indeed,  seem  so  to  you?"  re- 
sponded Dr.  Leete.  "  Now,  do  you  know 
that  seems  very  curious  to  me?  The  way  it 
strikes  people  nowadays  is,  that  a  man  who 
can    produce  twice  as  much  as  another  wdth 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  131 

the  Slime  effort,  instead  of  being  rewarded 
for  doing  so,  ought  to  be  punished  if  he  does 
not  do  so.  In  the  nineteenth  century,  when  a 
horse  pulled  a  heavier  load  than  a  goat,  I 
suppose  you  rewarded  him.  Now,  we  should 
have  whipped  him  soundly  if  he  had  not,  on 
the  ground  that,  being  much  stronger,  he  ought 
to.  It  is  singular  how  ethical  standards 
change."  The  doctor  said  this  with  such  a 
twinkle  in  his  eye  that  I  was  obliged  to 
laugh. 

"I  suppose,"  I  said,  "that  the  real  reason 
that  we  rewarded  men  for  their  endowments, 
while  we  considered  those  of  horses  and  goats 
merely  as  fixing  the  service  to  be  severally 
required  of  them,  was  that  the  animals,  not 
being  reasoning  beings,  naturally  did  the  best 
they  could,  whereas  men  could  only  be  in- 
duced to  do  so  by  rewarding  them  according 
to  the  amount  of  their  product.  That  brings 
me  to  ask  why,  unless  human  nature  has 
mightily  changed  in  a  hundred  years,  you  are 
not  under  the  same  necessity." 


132  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

"We  arc,"  replied  Dr.  Leete.  "I  don't 
think  there  has  been  any  change  in  human 
nature  in  that  respect  since  your  day.  It  is 
still  so  constituted  that  special  incentives  in  the 
form  of  prizes,  and  advantages  to  be  gained, 
are  requisite  to  call  out  the  best  endeavors  of 
the  average  man  in  any  direction." 

"But  what  inducement,"  I  asked,  "can  a 
man  have  to  put  forth  his  best  endeavors 
when,  however  much  or  little  he  accomplishes, 
his  income  remains  the  same.  High  charac- 
ters may  be  moved  by  devotion  to  the  common 
welfare  under  such  a  system,  but  does  not  the 
average  man  tend  to  rest  back  on  his  oar,  rea- 
soning that  it  is  of  no  use  to  make  a  special 
effort,  since  the  effort  will  not  increase  his 
income,  nor  its  withholding  diminish  it." 

"  Does  it  then  really  seem  to  you,"  answered 
my  companion,  "  that  human  nature  is  insen- 
sible to  an}^  motives  save  fear  of  want  and  love 
of  luxury,  that  you  should  expect  security  and 
equality  of  livelihood  to   leave  them    without 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 33 

possible  incentives  to  effort?  Your  contempo- 
raries did  not  really  think  so,  though  they 
might  fancy  they  did.  When  it  was  a  ques- 
tion of  the  grandest  class  of  efforts,  the  most 
absolute  self-devotion,  they  depended  on  quite 
other  incentives.  Not  higher  wages,  but 
honor  and  the  hope  of  men's  gratitude,  patriot- 
ism and  the  inspiration  of  dut}',  were  the 
motives  which  they  set  before  their  soldiers 
when  it  was  a  question  of  dying  for  the  nation, 
and  never  was  there  an  age  of  the  world  when 
those  motives  did  not  call  out  what  is  best  and 
noblest  in  men.  And  not  only  this,  but  when 
you  come  to  analyze  the  love  of  money  which 
was  the  general  impulse  to  effort  in  your  day, 
you  find  that  the  dread  of  want  and  desire  of 
luxury  was  but  one  of  several  motives  which 
the  pursuit  of  money  represented ;  the  others, 
and  with  many  the  more  influential,  being 
desire  of  power,  of  social  position,  and  reputa- 
tion for  ability  and  success.  So  you  see  that 
though  we  have  abolished  poverty  and  the  fear 


134  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

of  it,  and  inordinate  luxury  with  the  hope 
of  it,  we  have  not  touched  the  greater  part 
of  the  motives  which  underhiy  the  love  of 
money  in  former  times,  or  an}'  of  those  which 
prompted  the  supremer  sorts  of  effort.  The 
coarser  motives,  which  no  longer  move  us, 
have  been  replaced  by  higher  motives  wholly 
unknown  to  the  mere  wage  earners  of 
your  age.  Now  that  industry  of  whatever 
sort  is  no  longer  self-service,  but  service  of 
the  nation,  patriotism,  passion  for  humanity, 
impel  the  worker  as  in  your  day  they  did  the 
soldier.  The  army  of  industry  is  an  army, 
not  alone  by  virtue  of  its  perfect  organization, 
but  by  reason  also  of  the  ardor  of  self-devotion 
v^hich  animates  its  members. 

"  But  as  you  used  to  supplement  the  motives 
of  patriotism  wdth  the  love  of  glory,  in  order 
to  stimulate  the  valor  of  your  soldiers,  so  do 
we.  Based  as  our  industrial  system  is  on  the 
principle  of  requiring  the  same  unit  of  effort 
from  every  man,  that  is,  the  best  he  can  do, 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  135 

you  will  sec  that  the  means  by  which  we  spur 
the  workers  to  do  their  best  must  be  a  very 
essential  part  of  our  scheme.  With  us,  dili- 
o-ence  in  the  national  service  is  the  sole  and 
certain  way  to  public  repute,  social  distinction, 
and  official  power.  The  value  of  a  man's  ser- 
vices to  society  fixes  his  rank  in  it.  Com- 
pared with  the  eflect  of  our  social  arrange- 
ments in  impelling  men  to  be  zealous  in  busi- 
ness, we  deem  the  object-lessons  of  biting 
poverty  and  wanton  luxury  on  which  you 
depended  a  device  as  weak  and  uncertain  as 
it  was  barbaric." 

"  I  should  be  extremely  interested,"  I  said, 
"  to  learn  something  of  what  these  social  ar- 
rangements are." 

"The  scheme  in  its  details,"  replied  the  doc- 
tor, "is  of  course  very  elaborate,  for  it  under- 
lies the  entire  organization  of  our  industrial 
army  ;  but  a  few  words  will  give  you  a  gen- 
eral idea  of  it." 

At  this   moment   our  talk  was  charmingly 


136  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

interrupted  by  the  emergence  upon  the  aerial 
platform  where  we  sat  of  Edith  Leete.  She 
was  dressed  for  the  street,  and  had  come  to 
speak  to  her  father  about  some  commission 
she  was  to  do  for  him. 

"By  the  way,  Edith,"  he  exclaimed,  as  she 
was  about  to  leave  us  to  ourselves,  ''  I  wonder 
if  Mr.  West  would  not  be  interested  in  visiting 
the  store  with  you?  I  have  been  telling  him 
something  about  our  system  of  distribution, 
and  perhaps  he  might  like  to  see  it  in  practical 
operation." 

"My  daughter,"  he  added,  turning  to  me, 
"  is  an  indefatigable  shopper,  and  can  tell  you 
more  about  the  stores  than  I  can." 

The  proposition  was  naturally  very  agree- 
able to  me,  and  Edith  being  good  enough  to 
say  that  she  should  be  glad  to  have  my  com- 
pany, we  left  the  house  together. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 37 


CHAPTER  X. 

"  T  F  I  am  going  to  explain  our  way  of  shop- 

-^  pii^g  to  you,"  said  my  companion,  as 
we  walked  along  the  street,  "you  must  ex- 
plain your  way  to  me.  I  have  never  been 
able  to  understand  it  from  all  I  have  read  on 
the  subject.  For  example,  when  you  had 
such  a  vast  number  of  shops,  each  with  its 
different  assortment,  how  could  a  lady  ever 
settle  upon  an}'  purchase  till  she  had  visited 
all  the  shops?  For,  until  she  had,  she  could 
not  know  what  there  was  to  clioose  from." 

"  It  was  as  you  suppose  ;  that  was  the  only 
way  she  could  know,"  I  replied. 

"  Father  calls  me  an  indefatigable  shopper, 
but  I  should  soon  be  a  very  fatigued  one  if  I 
had  to  do  as  they  did,"  was  Edith's  laughing 
comment. 

"The  loss  of  time  in  going  from    shop   to 


138  tOOKWG  3 AC  INWARD. 

shop  was  indeed  a  waste  which  the  busy  bit- 
terl}^  complained  of,"  I  said  ;  "  but  as  for  the 
ladies  of  the  idle  class,  though  they  com- 
plained also,  I  think  the  system  was  reall}^  a 
godsend  by  furnishing  a  device  to  kill  time." 

"  But  say  there  were  a  thousand  shops  in  a 
city,  hundreds,  perhaps,  of  the  same  sort,  how 
could  even  the  idlest  find  time  to  make  their 
rounds  ?  " 

"They  really  could  not  visit  all,  of  course," 
I  replied.  "Those  who  did  a  great  deal  of 
buying,  learned  in  time  where  they  might  ex- 
pect to  find  what  they  wanted.  This  class 
had  made  a  science  of  the  specialties  of  the 
shops,  and  bought  at  advantage,  always  get- 
ting the  most  and  best  for  the  least  money. 
It  required,  however,  long  experience  to  ac- 
quire this  knowledge.  Those  who  were  too 
busy,  or  bought  too  little  to  gain  it,  took  their 
chances  and  were  generally  unfortunate,  get- 
ting the  least  and  worst  for  the  most  money. 
It  was  the  merest  chance  if  persons  not  ex- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I39 

perienced  in  shopping  received  the  vakie  of 
their  money." 

"  But  wliy  did  you  put  up  with  such  a  shock- 
ingly inconvenient  arrangement  when  you  saw 
its  faults  so  plainly?"  Edith  asked  me. 

"  It  was  like  all  our  social  arrangements," 
I  replied.  "You  can  see  their  faults  scarcely 
more  plainly  than  we  did,  but  we  saw  no 
remedy  for  them." 

"  Here  we  are  at  the  store  of  our  ward," 
said  Edith,  as  we  turned  in  at  the  great  portal 
of  one  of  the  magnificent  public  buildings  I 
had  observed  in  my  morning  walk.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  exterior  aspect  of  the  edi- 
fice to  suggest  a  store  to  a  representative  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  There  was  no  dis- 
;  lay  of  goods  in  the  great  windows,  or  any 
device  to  advertise  wares  or  attract  custom. 
Nor  was  there  any  sort  of  sign  or  legend  on 
the  front  of  the  building  to  indicate  the  char- 
acter of  the  business  carried  on  there ;  but  in- 
stead, above  the  portal,  standing  out  from  the 


140  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

front  of  the  building,  a  majestic  life-size  group 
of  statuary,  the  central  figure  of  which  was 
a  female  ideal  of  Plenty,  with  her  cornucopia. 
Judging  from  the  composition  of  the  throng 
passing  in  and  out,  about  the  same  proportion 
of  the  sexes  among  shoppers  obtained  as 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  As  we  entered, 
Edith  said  that  there  was  one  of  these  great 
distributing;  establishments  in  each  ward  of  the 
city,  so  that  no  residence  was  more  than 
five  or  ten  minutes'  walk  from  one  of  them. 
It  was  the  first  interior  of  a  twentieth  century 
public  building  that  I  had  ever  beheld,  and 
the  spectacle  naturally  impressed  me  deeply. 
I  was  in  a  vast  hall  full  of  light,  received  not 
alone  from  the  windows  on  all  sides,  but  from 
the  dome,  the  point  of  which  was  a  hundred 
feet  above.  Beneath  it,  in  the  centre  of  the 
hall,  a  magnificent  fountain  played,  cooling 
the  atmosphere  to  a  delicious  freshness  with 
its  spray.  The  walls  and  ceiling  were  fres- 
coed in  mellow  tints,  calculated  to  soften  with- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I41 

out  absorbing  the  light  which  flooded  the 
interior.  Around  the  fountain  was  a  space 
occupied  with  chairs  and  sofas,  on  which 
many  persons  were  seated  conversing.  Le- 
gends on  the  walls  all  about  the  hall  indicated 
to  what  classes  of  commodities  the  counters 
below  were  devoted.  Edith  directed  her  steps 
towards  one  of  these,  where  samples  of  muslin 
of  a  bewildering  variety  were  displayed,  and 
proceeded  to  inspect  them. 

"Where  is  the  clerk?"  I  asked,  for  there 
was  no  one  behind  the  counter,  and  no  one 
seemed  coming  to  attend  to  the  customer. 

"I  have  no  need  of  the  clerk  3^et,"  said 
Edith;  "I  have  not  made  my  selection." 

*^It  was  the  principal  business  of  clerks  to 
help  people  to  make  their  selections  in  my 
day,"  I  replied. 

"  What !     To  tell  people  what  they  wanted  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  and  oftener  to  induce  them  to  buy 
what  they  didn't  want." 

"  But  did  not  ladies  find  that  very  imperti- 


142  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

nent?"  Edith  asked,  wonderingly.  "What 
concern  could  it  possibly  be  to  the  clerks 
whether  people  bought  or  not?" 

"It  was  their  sole  concern,"  I  answered. 
"  They  were  hired  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
rid  of  the  goods,  and  were  expected  to  do 
their  utmost,  short  of  the  use  of  force,  to  com- 
pass that  end." 

"Ah,  yes!  How  stupid  I  am  to  forget!" 
said  Edith.  "The  storekeeper  and  his  clerks 
depended  for  their  livelihood  on  selling  the 
goods  in  your  day.  Of  course  that  is  all  dif- 
ferent now.  The  goods  are  the  nation's. 
They  are  here  for  those  who  want  them,  and 
it  is  the  business  of  the  clerks  to  wait  on  people 
and  take  their  orders  ;  but  it  is  not  the  interest 
of  the  clerk  or  the  nation  to  dispose  of  a  yard 
or  a  pound  of  anything  to  anybody  who  does 
not  want  it."  She  smiled  as  she  added,  "  How 
exceedingly  odd  it  must  have  seemed  to  have 
clerks  trying  to  induce  one  to  take  what  one 
did  not  want,  or  was  doubtful  about !" 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I43 

"  But  even  a  twentieth  century  clerk  might 
make  himself  useful  in  giving  you  informa- 
tion about  the  goods,  though  he  did  not  tease 
you  to  buy  them,"  I  suggested. 

"No,"  said  Edith,  "that  is  not  the  business 
of  the  clerk.  These  printed  cards,  for  which 
the  government  authorities  are  responsible, 
give  us  all  the  information  we  can  possibly 
need." 

I  saw  then  that  there  was  fastened  to  each 
sample  a  card  containing  in  succinct  form  a 
complete  statement  of  the  make  and  materials 
of  the  goods  and  all  its  qualities,  as  well  as 
price,  leaving  absolutely  no  point  to  hang  a 
question  on. 

"The  clerk  has,  then,  nothing  to  say  about 
the  goods  he  sells?"  I  said. 

"  Nothing  at  all.  It  is  not  necessary  that  he 
should  know  or  profess  to  know  anything 
about  them.  Courtesy  and  accuracy  in  taking 
orders  are  all  that  are  required  of  him." 

"What  a  prodigious  amount  of  lying  that 
simple  arrangement  saves  !"  I  ejaculated. 


144  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  all  the  clerks  misrepre- 
sented their  goods  in  your  day  ?  "  Edith  asked. 

''  God  forbid  that  I  should  say  so  ! "  I  re- 
plied, "  for  there  were  many  who  did  not,  and 
they  were  entitled  to  especial  credit,  for  when 
one's  livelihood  and  that  of  his  wife  and  babies 
depended  on  the  amount  of  goods  he  could 
dispose  of,  the  temptation  to  deceive  the  cus- 
tomer, or  let  him  deceive  himself — was  well- 
nigh  overwhelming.  But,  Miss  Leete,  I  am 
distracting  you  from  3'our  task  with  my  talk." 

"Not  at  all.  I  have  made  my  selections." 
With  that  she  touched  a  button,  and  in  a 
moment  a  clerk  appeared.  He  took  down  her 
order  on  a  tablet  with  a  pencil  which  made 
two  copies,  of  which  he  gave  one  to  her,  and 
enclosing  the  counterpart  in  a  small  recep- 
tacle, dropped  it  into  a  transmitting  tube. 

"The  duplicate  of  the  order,"  said  Edith 
as  she  turned  away  from  the  counter,  after  the 
clerk  had  punched  the  value  of  her  purchase 
out  of  the  credit  card  she  gave  him,  "is  given 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I45 

to  the  purchaser,  so  that  any  mistakes  in  fill- 
ing it  can  be  easily  traced  and  rectified/' 

"You  were  very  quick  about  your  selec- 
tions," I  said.  "May  I  ask  how  you  knew 
that  you  might  not  have  found  something  to 
suit  you  better  in  some  of  the  other  stores? 
But  probably  you  are  required  to  buy  in  your 
own  district." 

"Oh,  no,"  she  replied.  "We  buy  where 
we  please,  though  naturally  most  often  near 
home.  But  I  should  have  gained  nothing  by 
visiting  other  stores.  The  assortment  in  all  is 
exactly  the  same,  representing  as  it  does  in 
each  case  samples  of  all  the  varieties  pro- 
duced or  imported  by  the  United  States. 
That  is  why  one  can  decide  quickly,  and 
never  need  visit  two  stores." 

"  And  is  this  merely  a  sample  store  ?  I  see 
no  clerks  cutting  oft'  goods  or  marking  bun- 
dles." 

"  All  our  stores  are  sample  stores,  except  as 
to  a  few  classes  of  articles.     The  goods,  with 


146  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

these  exceptions,  are  all  at  the  great  central 
warehouse  of  the  city,  to  which  they  are 
shipped  directly  from  the  producers.  We 
order  from  the  sample  and  the  printed  state- 
ment of  texture,  make  and  qualities.  The 
orders  are  sent  to  the  warehouse,  and  the 
goods  distributed  from  there." 

"That  must  be  a  tremendous  saving  of 
handling,"  I  said.  "  By  our  system,  the  man- 
ufacturer sold  to  the  wholesaler,  the  whole- 
saler to  the  retailer,  and  the  retailer  to  the 
consumer,  and  the  goods  had  to  be  handled 
each  time.  You  avoid  one  handling  of  the 
goods,  and  eliminate  the  retailer  altogether, 
with  his  big  profit  and  the  arm.y  of  clerks  it 
goes  to  support.  Why,  Miss  Leete,  this  store 
is  merely  the  order  department  of  a  v/holesale 
house,  with  no  more  than  a  wholesaler's  com- 
plement of  clerks.  Under  our  system  of 
handling  the  goods,  persuading  the  customer 
to  buy  them,  cutting  them  off,  and  packing 
them,  ten  clerks  would  not  do  what  one  does 
here.     The  saving  must  be  enormous." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  147 

"I  suppose  so,"  said  Edith,  "but  of  course 
we  have  never  known  any  other  way.     But, 
Mr.  West,  you  must  not  fail  to  ask  father  to 
take  you  to  the  central  warehouse  some  day, 
where  they  receive  the  orders  from  the  different 
sample  houses  all  over  the  city  and  parcel  out 
and  send  the  goods  to  their  destinations.     He 
took  me  there  not  long  ago,  and  it  was  a  won- 
derful sight.     The  system  is  certainly  perfect ; 
for  e,xample,  over  yonder  in  that  sort  of  cage 
is  the  despatching  clerk.     The  orders,  as  they 
are  taken  by  the  different  departments  in  the 
store,  are  sent  by  transmitters  to  him.     His  as- 
sistants sort  them  and  enclose  each  class  in  a 
carrier-box  by  itself.     The  despatching  clerk 
has    a   dozen    pneumatic    transmitters   before 
him  answering  to  the  general  classes  of  goods, 
each  communicating  with  the  corresponding 
department  at  the  warehouse.     He  drops  the 
box  of  orders  into  the  tube  it  calls  for  and  in  a 
few  moments  later  it  drops  on  the  proper  desk  in 
the  warehouse,  together  with  all  the  orders  of 


148  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

the  same  sort  from  the  other  sample  stores. 
The  orders  are  read  off,  recorded,  and  sent  to 
be  filled,  like  lightning.  The  filling  I  thought 
the  most  interesting  part.  Bales  of  cloth  are 
placed  on  spindles  and  turned  by  machinery, 
and  the  cutter,  who  also  has  a  machine,  works 
right  through  one  bale  after  another  till  ex- 
hausted, when  another  man  takes  his  place ; 
and  it  is  the  same  with  those  who  fill  the  orders 
in  any  other  staple.  The  packages  are  then 
delivered  by  larger  tubes  to  the  city  districts, 
and  thence  distributed  to  the  houses.  You 
may  understand  how  quickly  it  is  all  done 
when  I  tell  you  that  my  order  will  probably 
be  at  home  sooner  than  I  could  have  carried  it 
from  here." 

"  How  do  you  manage  in  the  thinly  settled 
rural  districts  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  The  system  is  the  same,"  Edith  explained ; 
"the  village  sample  shops  are  connected  by 
transmitters  with  the  central  county  warehouse, 
which  may  be  twenty  miles  away.     The  trans- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I49 

mission  is  so  swift,  though,  that  the  time  lost  on 
the  way  is  trifling.  But,  to  save  expense,  in 
many  counties  one  set  of  tubes  connect  several 
villages  with  the  warehouse,  and  then  there  is 
time  lost  waiting  for  one  another.  Some- 
times it  is  two  or  three  hours  before  goods 
ordered  are  received.  It  was  so  where  I  was 
staying  last  summer  and  I  found  it  quite  incon- 
venient." * 

"  There  must  be  many  other  respects  also,  no 
doubt,  in  which  the  country  stores  are  inferior 
to  the  city  stores,"  I  suggested. 

"No,"  Edith  answered,  "they  are  otherwise 
precisely  as  good.  The  sample  shop  of  the 
smallest  village,  just  like  this  one,  gives  you 
your  choice  of  all  the  varieties  of  goods 
the  nation  has,  for  the  county  warehouse 
draws  on  the  same  source  as  the  city  ware- 
house." 

As    we    walked    home    I    commented    on 

*  I  am  informed  since  the  above  is  in  type  that  this  Lick  of  perfection 
in  the  distributing  service  of  some  of  the  country  districts  is  to  be 
remedied,  and  that  soon  every  village  will  have  its  own  set  of  tubes. 


150  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

the  great  variety  in  the  size  and  cost  of  the 
houses.  "How  is  it,"  I  asked,  "that  this  dif- 
ference is  consistent  with  the  fact  that  all 
citizens  have  the  same  income?" 

"Because,"  Edith  explained,  "although  the 
income  is  the  same,  personal  taste  determines 
how  the  individual  shall  spend  it.  Some  like 
fine  horses ;  others,  like  myself,  prefer  pretty 
clothes ;  and  still  others  want  an  elaborate 
table.  The  rents  which  the  nation  receives 
for  these  houses  vary,  according  to  size,  ele- 
gance, and  location,  so  that  everybody  can 
find  something  to  suit.  The  larger  houses  are 
usually  occupied  by  large  families,  in  which 
there  are  several  to  contribute  to  the  rent ; 
while  small  families,  like  ours,  find  smaller 
houses  more  convenient  and  economical.  It 
is  a  matter  of  taste  and  convenience  wholly. 
I  have  read  that  in  old  dmes  people  often  kept 
up  establishments  and  did  other  things  which 
they  could  not  afford  for  ostentation,  to  make 
people  think  them  richer  than  they  were.  Was 
it  really  so,  Mr.  West?" 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  151 

"I  shall  have  to  admit  that  it  was,"  I  replied. 

"Well,  you  see,  it  could  not  be  so  nowadays  ; 
for  everybody's  income  is  known,  and  it  is 
known  that  what  is  spent  one  way  must  be 
saved  another." 


152  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  XL 

HEN  we  arrived  home  Dr.  Leete  had 
not  yet  returned,  and  Mrs.  Leete  was 
not  visible.  "Are  you  fond  of  music,  Mr. 
West?"  Edith  asked. 

I  assured  her  that  it  was  half  of  life,  accord- 
ing to  my  notion. 

"  I  ought  to  apologize  for  inquiring,"  she  said. 
"It  is  not  a  question  that  we  ask  one  another 
nowadays ;  but  I  have  read  that  in  your  da}^ 
even  among  the  cultured  class,  there  were 
some  who  did  not  care  for  music." 

"You  must  remember,  in  excuse,"  I  said, 
"  that  we  had  some  rather  absurd  kinds  of 
music." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  know  that;  I  am  afraid 
I  should  not  have  fancied  it  all  myself.  Would 
you  like  to  hear  some  of  ours  now,  Mr. 
West?'-* 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 53 

"  Nothing  would  delight  me  so  much  as  to 
listen  to  you,"  I  said. 

"To  me  !  "  she  exclaimed,  laughing.  "Did 
you  think  I  was  going  to  play  or  sing  to  you?  " 

"I  hoped  so,  certainly,"  I  replied. 

Seeing  that  I  was  a  little  abashed,  she  sub- 
dued her  merriment  and  explained.  "  Of 
course,  we  all  sing  nowadays  as  a  matter  of 
course  in  the  training  of  the  voice,  and  some 
learn  to  play  instruments  for  their  private 
amusement ;  but  the  professional  music  is  so 
much  grander  and  more  perfect  than  any 
performance  of  ours,  and  so  easily  commanded 
when  we  wish  to  hear  it,  that  we  don't  think 
of  calling  our  singing  or  playing  music  at  all. 
All  the  really  fine  singers  and  players  are  in 
the  musical  service,  and  the  rest  of  us  hold 
our  peace  for  the  main  part.  But  would  you 
really  like  to  hear  some  music?" 

I  assured  her  once  more  that  I  would. 

"Come,  then,  into  the  music  room,"  she 
said,   and   I    followed  her  into    an   apartment 


154  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

finished,  without  hangings,  in  wood,  with  a 
floor  of  pohshed  wood.  I  was  prepared  for 
new  devices  in  musical  instruments,  but  I  saw 
nothing  in  the  room  which  by  any  stretch  of 
imagination  could  be  conceived  as  such.  It 
was  evident  that  my  puzzled  appearance  was 
affording  intense  amusement  to  Edith. 

"Please  look  at  to-day's  music,"  she  said, 
handing  me  a  card,  "and  tell  me  what  you 
would  prefer.  It  is  now  five  o'clock,  you  will 
remember." 

The  card  bore  the  date  "September  12, 
2COO,"  and  contained  the  largest  programme 
of  music  I  had  ever  seen.  It  was  as  various 
as  it  was  long,  including  a  most  extraordinary 
range  of  vocal  and  instrumental  solos,  duets, 
quartettes,  and  various  orchestral  combinations. 
I  remained  bewildered  by  the  prodigious  list 
until  Edith's  pink  linger-tip  indicated  a  par- 
ticular section  of  it,  where  several  selections 
were  bracketed,  with  the  words  "5  p.m." 
against  them ;  then  I  observed  that  this  pro- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  155 

digioiis  programme  was.  an  all  day  one, 
divided  into  twenty-four  sections  answering  to 
the  hours.  There  were  but  a  few  pieces  of 
music  in  the  '^5  p-^-"  section,  and  I  indicated 
an  organ  piece  as  my  preference. 

"I  am  so  glad  you  like  the  organ,"  said  she. 
"I  think  there  is  scarcely  any  music  that  suits 
my  mood  oftener." 

She  made  me  sit  down  comfortably,  and 
crossing  the  room,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  merely 
touched  one  or  two  screws,  and  at  once  the 
room  was  filled  with  the  music  of  a  grand 
organ  anthem  ;  filled,  not  flooded,  for,  by  some 
means,  the  volume  of  melody  had  been  per- 
fecdy  graduate  to  the  size  of  the  apartment. 
I  Hstened,  scarcely  breathing,  to  the  close. 
Such  music,  so  perfectly  rendered,  I  had  never 
expected  to  hear. 

"  Grand  I  "  I  cried,  as  the  last  great  wave  of 
sound  broke  and  ebbed  away  into  silence. 
"Bach  must  be  at  the  keys  of  that  organ; 
but  where  is  the  organ?" 


156  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

"Wait  a  moment,  please,"  said  Edith;  "I 
want  to  have  you  Hsten  to  this  waUz  before 
you  ask  any  questions.  I  think  it  is  perfectly 
charming,"  and  as  she  spoke  the  sound  of 
violins  filled  the  room  with  the  witchery  of  a 
summer  night.  When  this  had  also  ceased, 
she  said  :  "  There  is  nothing  in  the  least  m3^s- 
terious  about  the  music,  as  you  seem  to 
imagine.  It  is  not  made  by  fairies  or  genii, 
but  by  good,  honest,  and  exceedingly  clever 
human  hands.  Vv^e  have  simply  carried  the 
idea  of  labor-saving  by  co-operation  into 
our  musical  service  as  into  everything  else. 
There  are  a  number  of  music  rooms  in  the 
city,  perfectly  adapted  acoustically  to  the  dif- 
ferent sorts  of  music.  These  halls  are  con- 
nected by  telephone  with  all  the  houses  of  the 
city  w^hose  people  care  to  pay  the  small  fee, 
and  there  are  none,  you  may  be  sure,  who  do 
not.  The  corps  of  musicians  attached  to  each 
hall  is  so  large  that,  although  no  individual 
performer,  or  group  of  performers,  has  more 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  157 

than  a  brief  part,  each  day's  programme  lasts 
through  the  twenty-four  hours.  There  are 
on  that  card  for  to-day,  as  you  will  see  if  you 
observe  closely,  distinct  programmes  of  four 
of  these  concerts,  each  of  a  different  order  of 
music  from  the  others,  being  now  simul- 
taneously performed,  and  any  one  of  the 
four  pieces  now  going  on  that  you  prefer,  you 
can  hear  by  merely  pressing  the  button  which 
will  connect  your  house  wire  with  the  hall 
where  it  is  being  rendered.  The  programmes 
are  so  co-ordinated  that  the  pieces  at  any  one 
time  simultaneously  proceeding  in  the  different 
halls,  usually  offer  a  choice,  not  only  between 
instrumental  and  vocal,  and  between  different 
sorts  of  instruments  ;  but  also  between  different 
motives  from  grave  to  gay,  so  that  all  tastes 
and  moods  can  be  suited." 

"It  appears  to  me.  Miss  Leete,"  I  said,  "that 
if  we  could  have  devised  an  arrangement  for 
providing  everybody  with  music  in  their 
homes,     perfect      in      quality,     unlimited     in 


158  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

quantity,  suited  to  every  mood,  and  beginning 
and  ceasino^  at  will,  we  should  have  considered 
the  limit  of  human  felicity  alread}'  attained,  and 
ceased  to  strive  for  further  improvements." 

"I  am  sure  I  never  could  imagine  how 
those  among  you  who  depended  at  all  on 
music  managed  to  endure  the  old  fashioned 
system  for  providing  it,"  replied  Edith.  "  Music 
really  worth  hearing  must  have  been,  I  sup- 
pose, wholly  out  of  the  reach  of  the  masses, 
and  attainable  by  the  most  favored  only  oc- 
casionally at  great  trouble,  prodigious  expense, 
and  then  for  brief  periods,  arbitrarily  fixed  by 
somebody  else  and  in  connection  with  all  sorts 
of  undesirable  circumstances.  Your  concerts, 
for  instance,  and  operas  !  How  perfectly  ex- 
asperating it  must  have  been,  for  the  sake  of  a 
piece  or  two  of  music  that  suited  you,  to  have 
to  sit  for  hours  listening  to  what  you  did  not 
care  for  !  Now,  at  a  dinner  one  can  skip  the 
courses  one  does  not  care  for.  Who  would 
ever    dine,    however    hungry,    if    required    to 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  159 

eat  everything  brought  on  the  table?  and  I 
am  sure  one's  hearhig  is  quite  as  sensitive  as 
one's  taste.  I  suppose  it  was  these  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  commanding  really  good  music 
which  made  )ou  endure  so  much  playing  and 
singing  in  your  homes  by  people  who  had  only 
the  rudiments  of  the  art." 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "it  was  that  sort  of  music 
or  none  for  most  of  us." 

"Ah,  well,"  Edith  sighed,  "when  one  really 
considers,  it  is  not  so  strange  that  people  in 
those  days  so  generally  did  not  care  for  music. 
I  daresay  I  should  have  detested  it,  too." 

"Did  I  understand  you  rightly,"  I  inquired, 
"that  this  musical  programme  covers  the  entire 
twenty-four  hours?  It  seems  to  on  this  card, 
certainly  ;  but  who  is  there  to  listen  to  music 
between  say  midnight  and  morning?" 

"Oh,  many,"  Edith  replied.  "Our  people 
keep  all  hours  ;  but  if  the  music  were  provided 
from  midnight  to  morning  for  no  others,  it  still 
would  be  for  the  sleepless,  the  sick,  and  the 


l6o  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

dying.  All  our  bed-chambers  have  a  telephone 
attachment  at  the  head  of  the  bed  by  which 
any  person  who  may  be  sleepless  can  command 
music  at  pleasure,  of  the  sort  suited  to  the 
mood." 

"  Is  there  such  an  arrangement  in  the  room 
assigned  to  me?  " 

"Why,  certainly  ;  and  how  stupid,  how  very 
stupid,  of  me  not  to  think  to  tell  you  of  that 
last  night  I  Father  will  show  you  about  the 
adjustment  before  you  go  to  bed  to-night,  how- 
ever;  and  with  the  receiver  at  your  ear,  I  am 
quite  sure  you  will  be  able  to  snap  your  fingers 
at  all  sorts  of  uncanny  feelings  if  they  trouble 
you  again." 

That  evening  Dr.  Leete  asked  us  about  our 
visit  to  the  store,  and  in  the  course  of  the 
desultory  comparison  of  the  ways  of  the 
nineteenth  century  and  the  twentieth,  which 
followed,  something  raised  the  question  of 
inheritance.  "I  suppose,"  I  said,  "the  inher- 
itance of  property  is  not  now  allowed." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  l6l 

"  On  the  contrary,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "  there 
is  no  interference  with  it.  In  fact,  you  will 
find,  Mr.  West,  as  you  come  to  know  us,  that 
there  is  far  less  interference  of  any  sort  with 
personal  liberty  nowadays  than  you  were 
accustomed  to.  We  require,  indeed,  by  law 
that  every  man  shall  serve  the  nation  for  a  fixed 
period,  instead  of  leaving  him  his  choice,  as 
you  did,  between  working,  stealing,  or  starv- 
ing. With  the  exception  of  this  fundamental 
law,  which  is,  indeed,  merely  a  codification  of 
the  law  of  nature  —  the  edict  of  Eden  —  by 
which  it  is  made  equal  in  its  pressure  on  men, 
our  system  depends  in  no  particular  upon 
legislation,  but  is  entirely  voluntary,  the  logi- 
cal outcome  of  the  operation  of  human  nature 
under  rational  conditions.  This  question  of 
inheritance  illustrates  just  that  point.  The 
fact  that  the  nation  is  the  sole  capitalist  and 
land-owner,  of  course  restricts  the  individual's 
possessions  to  his  annual  credit,  and  what  per- 
sonal and  household  belongings  he  may  have 


l62  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

procured  with  it.  His  credit,  like  an  annuity 
in  your  day,  ceases  on  his  death,  with  the 
allowance  of  a  fixed  sum  for  funeral  expenses. 
His  other  possessions- he  leaves  as  he  pleases." 

"What  is  to  prevent,  in  course  of  time,  such 
accumulations  of  valuable  goods  and  chattels 
in  the  hands  of  individuals  as  might  seriously 
interfere  with  equality  in  the  circumstances  of 
citizens?"  I  asked. 

"That  matter  arranges  itself  very  simply," 
was  the  reply.  "  Under  the  present  organiza- 
tion of  society,  accumulations  of  personal 
property  are  merely  burdensome  the  moment 
they  exceed  what  adds  to  the  real  comfort. 
In  your  day,  if  a  man  had  a  house  crammed 
full  with  gold  and  silver  plate,  rare  China, 
expensive  furniture,  and  such  things,  he  was 
considered  rich,  for  these  things  represented 
money,  and  could  at  any  time  be  turned  into  it. 
Nowadays  a  man  w^iom  the  legacies  of  a  hun- 
dred relatives,  simultaneously  dying,  should 
place  in  a  similar  position,  would  be  considered 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  163 

very  unlucky.  The  articles,  not  being  salable, 
would  be  of  no  value  to  him  except  for  their 
actual  use  or  the  enjoyment  of  their  beauty. 
On  the  other  hand,  his  income  remaining  the 
same,  he  would  have  to  deplete  his  credit  to 
hire  houses  to  store  the  goods  in,  and  still 
further  to  pay  for  the  service  of  those  who  took 
care  of  them.  You  may  be  very  sure  that  such 
a  man  would  lose  no  time  in  scattering  among 
his  friends  possessions  which  only  made  him 
the  poorer,  and  that  none  of  those  friends 
would  accept  more  of  them  than  they  could 
easily  spare  room  for  and  time  to  attend  to. 
You  see,  then,  that  to  prohibit  the  inheritance 
of  personal  property  with  a  view  to  prevent 
great  accumulations,  would  be  a  superfluous 
precaution  for  the  nation.  The  individual  citi- 
zen can  be  trusted  to  see  that  he  is  not  over- 
burdened. So  careful  is  he  in  this  respect, 
that  the  relatives  usually  waive  claim  to  most 
of  the  effects  of  deceased  friends,  reserving 
only    particular    objects.      The    nation    takes 


164  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

charge  of  the  resigned  chattels,  and  turns 
such  as  are  of  value  into  the  common  stock 
once  more." 

"You  spoke  of  paying  for  service  to  take 
care  of  your  houses,"  said  I;  "that  suggests  a 
question  I  have  several  times  been  on  the  point 
of  asking.  How  have  3^ou  disposed  of  the 
problem  of  domestic  service?  Who  are  willing 
to  be  domestic  servants  in  a  community  where 
all  are  social  equals?  Our  ladies  found  it  hard 
enough  to  find  such  even  when  there  was  little 
pretence  of  social  equality." 

"It  is  precisely  because  we  are  all  social 
equals  whose  equality  nothing  can  compromise. 
and  because  service  is  honorable,  in  a  society 
whose  fundamental  principle  is  that  all  in  turn 
shall  serve  the  rest,  that  we  could  easily  pro- 
vide a  corps  of  domestic  servants  such  as  3^ou 
never  dreamed  of,  if  we  needed  them,"  replied 
Dr.  Leete.     "But  we  do  not  need  them." 

"  Who  does  your  house-work,  then  ?  "  I  asked. 

"There  is  none  to  do,"  said  Mrs.  Leete,  to 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 65 

whom  I  had  addressed  this  question.  "  Our 
washing  is  all  done  at  public  laundries  at  ex- 
cessively cheap  rates,  and  our  cooking  at 
public  kitchens.  The  making  and  repairing  of 
all  we  wear  are  done  outside  in  public  shops. 
Electricity,  of  course,  takes  the  place  of  all 
fires  and  lighting.  We  choose  houses  no 
larger  than  we  need,  and  furnish  them  so  as 
to  involve  the  minimum  of  trouble  to  keep 
them  in  order.  We  have  no  use  for  domestic 
servants." 

"The  fact,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  "that  you 
had  in  the  poorer  classes  a  boundless  supply 
of  serfs  on  whom  you  could  impose  all  sorts  of 
painful  and  disagreeable  tasks,  made  you  in- 
different to  devices  to  avoid  the  necessity  for 
them.  But  now  that  we  all  have  to  do  in  turn 
whatever  work  is  done  for  society,  every  in- 
dividual in  the  nation  has  the  same  interest, 
and  a  personal  one,  in  devices  for  lightening 
the  burden.  This  fact  has  given  a  prodigious 
impulse  to  labor-saving  inventions  in  all  sorts 


1 66  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

of  industry,  of  which  the  combination  of  the 
maximum  of  comfort  and  minimum  of  trouble 
in  household  arrangements  was  one  of  the 
earliest  results." 

"  In  case  of  special  emergencies  in  the  house- 
hold," pursued  Dr.  Leete,  ''  such  as  extensive 
cleaning  or  renovation,  or  sickness  in  the  fam- 
ily, we  can  always  secure  assistance  from  the 
industrial  force." 

''  But  how  do  you  recompense  these  assist- 
ants, since  you  have  no  money?" 

"We  do  not  pay  them,  of  course,  but  the 
nation  for  them.  Their  services  can  be 
obtained  by  application  at  the  proper  bureau, 
and  their  value  is  pricked  off  the  credit  card 
of  the  applicant." 

"What  a  paradise  for  womankind  the  world 
must  be  now!"  I  exclaimed.  "In  my  day, 
even  wealth  and  unlimited  servants  did  not 
enfrancliise  their  possessors  from  household 
cares,  while  the  women  of  the  merely  well-to-do 
and  poorer  classes  lived  and  died  martyrs  to 
them." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  167 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Leete,  ''I  have  read  some- 
thing of  that ;  enough  to  convince  me  that, 
badly  off  as  the  men,  too,  were  in  your  day, 
they  were  more  fortunate  than  their  mothers 
and  wives." 

"The  broad  shoulders  of  the  nation,"  said 
Dr.  Leete,  "bear  now  like  a  feather  the  bur- 
den that  broke  the  backs  of  the  women  of 
your  day.  Their  misery  came,  w^ith  all  j^our 
other  miseries,  from  that  incapacity  for  co- 
operation which  followed  from  the  individual- 
ism on  which  your  social  system  wtis  founded, 
from  your  inability  to  perceive  that  you  could 
.make  ten  times  more  profit  out  of  your  fellow 
men  by  uniting  with  them  than  by  contending 
with  them.  The  w^onder  is,  not  that  you  did 
not  live  more  comfortably,  but  that  you  w^ere 
able  to  live  together  at  all,  w^ho  were  all  con- 
fessedly bent  on  making  one  another  your  ser- 
vants, and  securing  possession  of  one  another's 
goods." 

"There,  there,  father,   if  you  are  so  vehe- 


i68  LOOKING   BACKWARD.       . 

ment,  Mr.  West  will  think  you  are  scolding 
him,"'  laughingly  interposed  Edith. 

"When  you  want  a  doctor,"'  I  asked,  "do 
you  simply  apply  to  the  proper  bureau  and 
take  any  one  that  may  be  sent?" 

"That  rule  would  not  work  well  in  the  case 
of  physicians,"  replied  Dr.  Leete.  "  The 
good  a  physician  can  do  a  patient  depends 
largely  on  his  acquaintance  with  liis  constitu- 
tional tendencies  and  condition.  The  patient 
must  be  able,  therefore,  to  call  in  a  particular 
doctor,  and  he  does  so,  just  as  patients  did  in 
your  day.  The  only  difference  is  that,  instead 
of  collecting  his  fee  for  himself,  the  doctor  col- 
lects it  for  the  nation  by  pricking  off  the 
amount,  according  to  a  regular  scale  for  medi- 
cal attendance,  from  the  patient's  credit  card." 

"I  can  imagine,"  I  said,  "that  if  the  fee  is 
alwa3's  the  same,  and  a  doctor  may  not  turn 
away  patients,  as  I  suppose  he  may,  tlie 
good  doctors  are  called  constantly  and  the 
poor  doctors  left  in  idleness." 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  1 69 

"111  the  first  place,  if  you  will  overlook  the 
apparent  conceit  of  the  remark  from  a  retired 
physician,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  with  a  smile, 
"we  have  no  poor  doctors.  Anybody  who 
pleases  to  get  a  little  smattering  of  medical 
terms  is  not  now  at  liberty  to  practice  on  the 
bodies  of  citizens,  as  in  }our  day.  None  but 
students  who  have  passed  the  severe  tests  of 
the  schools,  and  clearly  proved  their  vocation, 
are  permitted  to  practice.  Then,  too,  you  will 
observe  that  there  is  nowadays  no  attempt  of 
doctors  to  build  up  their  practice  at  the  expense 
of  other  doctors.  There  would  be  no  motive 
for  th:;t.  For  the  rest,  the  doctor  has  to  ren- 
der reguhir  reports  of  his  work  to  the  medical 
bureau,  and  if  he  is  not  re.isonably  well 
employed,  work  is  found  for  him." 


170  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 


CHAPTER  XII. 

'"  I  ^IIE  questions  which  I  needed  to  ask  before 
I  could  acquire  even  an  outline  acquaint- 
ance with  the  institutions  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury being  endless,  and  Dr.  Leete's  good-nature 
appearing  equally  so,  we  sat  up  talking  for 
several  hours  r.fter  the  ladies  left  us.  Remindino- 
my  host  of  the  point  at  which  our  talk  had  broken 
off  that  morning,  I  expressed  my  curiosity  to 
learn  how  the  organization  of  the  industrial 
army  was  made  to  afford  a  sufficient  stimulus 
to  diligence  in  the  lack  of  any  anxiet}-  on  the 
worker's  part  as  to  his  livelihood. 

"You  must  understand  in  the  hrst  place," 
replied  tjie  doctor,  "  that  the  supply  of  incen- 
tives to  effort  is  but  one  of  the  objects  sought 
in  the  organization  we  have  adopted  for  the 
army.  The  other,  and  equally  important,  is 
to  secure  for  the  tile-leaders  and  captains  of  the 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  171 

force  and  the  great  officers  of  the  nation,  men 
of  proven  abilities,  who  are  pledged  by  their 
own  careers  to  hold  their  followers  up  to  their 
highest  standard  of  performance  and  permit  no 
lagging.  With  a  view  to  these  two  ends,  the 
whole  body  of  members  of  the  industrial  arm}' 
is  divided  into  lour  general  classes.  First,  the 
unclassified  grade,  of  common  laborers,  as- 
signed to  any  sort  of  work,  usually  the  coarser 
kinds  to  this  all  recruits  during  their  first  three 
years  belong.  Second,  the  apprentices,  as  the 
men  are  called  in  the  first  year  after  passing  from 
the  unclassified  grade,  while  they  are  mastering 
the  first  elements  of  their  chosen  avocations. 
Third,  the  main  body  of  the  full  workers, 
being  men  between  twenty-five  and  forty-five. 
Fourth,  the  officers,  from  the  lowest  who  have 
charge  of  men  to  the  highest.  These  four 
classes  are  all  under  a  different  form  of  dis- 
cipline. The  unclassified  workers,  doing  mis- 
cellaneous work,  cannot  of  course  be  so  rigidly 
graded  as  later.     They  are  supposed  to  be  in 


172  •       LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

a  sort  of  school,  learning  industrial  habits. 
Nevertheless  they  make  their  individual  rec- 
ords, and  excellence  receives  distinction  and 
helps  in  the  after  career,  something  as  academic 
standing  added  to  the  prestige  of  men  in  your 
day.  The  year  of  apprenticeship  follows. 
The  apprentice  is  given  the  first  quarter  of  it 
to  learn  the  rudiments  of  his  avocation,  but  he 
is  marked  on  the  last  three  quarters  with  a 
view  to  determine  which  grade  among  the 
workers  he  shall  be  enrolled  in  on  becoming  a 
full  workman.  It  may  seem  strange  that  the 
term  of  apprenticeship  should  be  the  same  in 
all  trades,  but  this  is  done  for  the  sake  of 
uniformity  in  the  system,  and  practically  works 
precisely  as  if  the  term  of  apprenticeship  varied 
according  to  the  difficulty  of  acquiring  the 
trade.  For,  in  the  trades  in  which  one  cannot 
become  proficient  in  a  year,  the  result  is  that 
the  apprentice  falls  into  the  lower  grades  of 
the  full  workmen,  and  works  upward  as  he 
grows  in  skill.     This  is  indeed  what  ordinarily 


LOOKING    BACKWARD.  1 73 

happens  in  most  trades.  The  full  workmen 
are  divided  into  three  grades,  according  to 
efliciency,  and  each  grade  into  a  first  and 
second  class,  so  that  there  are  in  all  six  classes, 
into  which  the  men  fall  according  to  their 
ability. 

To  facilitate  the  testing  of  efficiency,  all  in- 
dustrial work,  whenever  by  any  means,  and 
even  at  some  inconvenience,  it  is  possible,  is 
conducted  by  piece-work,  and  if  this  is  abso- 
lutely out  of  the  question,  the  best  possible 
substitute  for  determining  ability  is  adopted. 
The  men  are  regraded  yearly,  so  that  merit 
never  need  wait  long  to  rise,  nor  can  any  rest 
on  past  achievements,  unless  they  would  drop 
into  a  lower  rank.  The  results  of  each  annual 
regrading,  giving  the  standing  of  every  man  in 
the  army,  are  gazetted  in  the  public  prints. 

"Apart  from  the  grand  incentive  to  endeavor 
afforded  by  the  fact  that  the  high  places  in  the 
nation  are  open  only  to  the  highest  class  men, 
various   incitements   of  a   minor,  but  perhaps 


174  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

eqllal]^'  cflective,  sort  are  provided  in  the  form 
of  special  privileges  and  immunities  in  the  way 
of  discipline,  which  the  superior  class  men 
enjoy.  These,  w^hile  not  in  the  aggregate 
important,  have  the  effect  of  keeping  con- 
stantly before  every  man's  mind  the  desirabiiit}' 
of  attaining  the  grade  next  above  his  ou-n. 

"  It  is  obviously  important  that  not  onh'  the 
good  but  also  the  indifferent  and  poor  worl;- 
men  should  be  able  to  cherish  tlie  ambition  of 
rising.  Indeed,  the  number  of  the  latter  being 
so  much  f>"reater,  it  is  even  more  essential  that 
the  ranking  system  should  not  operate  to  dis- 
courage them  than  that  it  should  stimulate 
the  others.  It  is  to  this  end  that  the  grades 
are  divided  into  classes.  The  classes  being 
numerically  equal,  there  is  not  at  an}'  time, 
countincc  out  the  officers  and  the  unclassified 
and  apprentice  grades,  over  one-eighth  of  the 
industrial  army  in  the  lowest  class,  and  most 
of  this  number  are  recent  apprentices,  all  of 
v.'hom  expect  to  rise.     Still  further  to  encour- 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  1 75 

age  those  of  no  great  talents  to  do  their  best, 
a  man  who,  after  attaining  a  higher  grade, 
falls  back  into  a  lower,  does  not  lose  the  fruit 
of  his  effort,  but  retains,  as  a  sort  of  brevet, 
his  former  rank.  The  result  is  that  those  under 
our  ranking  system  who  fail  to  win  any  prize, 
by  way  of  solace  to  their  pride,  remaining 
during  the  entire  term  of  service  in  the  lowest 
class,  are  but  a  trifling  fraction  of  the  indus- 
trial army,  and  likely  to  be  as  deficient  in  sen- 
sibility to  their  position  as  in  ability  to  bet- 
ter it. 

"It  is  not  even  necessary  that  a  worker  should 
win  promotion  to  a  higher  grade  to  have  at 
least  a  taste  of  glory.  While  promotion 
requires  a  general  excellence  of  record  as  a 
worker,  honorable  mention  and  various  sorts 
of  distinction  are  awarded  for  excellence  less 
than  sufficient  for  promotion,  and  also  for 
special  feats  and  single  performances  in  the 
various  industries.  It  is  intended  that  no  form 
of  merit  shall  wholly  fail  of  recognition, 


176  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

"As  for  actual  neglect  of  work,  positively  bad 
work,  or  other  overt  remissness  on  the  part  of 
men  incapable  of  generous  motives,  the  disci- 
pline of  the  industrial  army  is  far  too  strict  to 
allow  much  of  that.  A  man  able  to  do  dut}^ 
and  persistently  refusing,  is  cut  off  from  all 
human  society. 

"The  lowest  grade  of  the  officers  of  the  indus- 
trial army,  that  of  assistant  foremen  or  lieu- 
tenants, is  appointed  out  of  men  who  have 
held  their  place  for  two  years  in  the  first  class 
of  the  first  grade.  Where  this  leaves  too  large 
a  range  of  choice,  only  the  first  group  of  this 
class  are  elig^ible.  No  one  thus  comes  to  the 
point  of  commanding  men  until  he  is  about 
thirty  years  old.  After  a  man  becomes  an 
officer,  his  rating,  of  course,  no  longer  depends 
on  the  efficiency  of  his  own  work,  but  on  that 
of  his  men.  The  foremen  are  appointed  from 
among  the  assistant  foremen,  by  the  same 
exercise  of  discretion,  limited  to  a  small  eligible 
class.     In  the  appointments  to  the  still  higher 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  1 77 

grades  another  principle  is  introduced,  which 
it  would  take  too  much  time  to  explain  now. 

"  Of  course  such  a  system  of  grading  as  I 
have  described  w^ould  have  been  impracticable 
applied  to  the  small  industrial  concerns  of  your 
day,  in  some  of  which  there  were  hardly 
enough  employees  to  have  left  one  apiece  for 
the  classes.  You  must  remember  that,  under 
the  national  organization  of  labor,  all  indus- 
tries are  carried  on  by  great  bodies  of  men,  a 
hundred  of  your  farms  or  shops  being  com- 
bined as  one.  The  superintendent,  with  us,  is 
like  a  colonel,  or  even  a  general,  in  one  of 
your  armies. 

"And  now,  Mr.  West,  I  will  leave  it  to  you, 
on  the  bare  outline  of  its  features  which  I 
have  given,  if  those  who  need  special  incen- 
tives to  do  their  best  are  likely  to  lack  them 
under  our  system." 

I  replied  that  it  seemed  to  me  the  incentives 
offered  w^ere,  if  any  objections  w^ere  to  be 
made,  too    strong ;    that  the  pace    set  for  the 


178  LOOKING   BACKWARD, 

young  n:cn  was  too  hot,  and  such,  indeed,  I 
would  add  with  deference,  still  remains  my 
opinion,  now  that  by  longer  residence  among 
you  I  have  become  better  acquainted  with  the 
whole  subject. 

Dr.  Leete,  however,  desired  me  to  reflect, 
and  I  am  ready  to  say  that  it  is  perhaps  a 
sufficient  reply  to  my  objection,  that  the  work- 
er's livelihood  is  in  no  way  dependent  on  his 
ranking,  and  anxiety  for  that  never  embitters 
his  disappointmicnts  ;  that  the  working  hours 
are  short,  the  vacations  regular,  and  that  all 
emulation  ceases  at  forty-five,  with  the  attain- 
ment of  middle  life. 

'^  There  are  two  or  three  other  points  I  ought 
to  refer  to,''  he  added,  "to  prevent  your  getting 
m'staken  impressions.  In  the  first  place,  you 
must  understand  that  this  system  of  prefer- 
ment given  the  more  efficient  w^orkers  over  the 
less  so,  in  no  way  contravenes  the  funda- 
mental idea  of  our  social  system,  that  all  who 
do  their  best  are  equally  deserving,  whether 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  179 

that  best  be  great  or  small.  I  have  shown 
that  the  system  is  arranged  to  encourage 
.tlie  weaker  as  well  as  the  stronger  with  the 
hope  of  rising,  ^vhile  the  fact  that  the  stronger 
are  selected  for  the  leaders  is  in  no  way  a 
reflection  upon  the  weaker,  but  in  the  interest 
of  the  common  weal. 

"  Do  not  imagine,  either,  because  emuhition 
is  given  free  phTy  as  an  incentive  under  our 
system,   that  we   deem   it   a   motive  hkely  to 
appeal  to  the  nobler  sort  of  men,  or  worthy  of 
them.     Such  as  these  find  their  motives  within, 
not  without,   and  measure  their   duty  by  their 
own  endowments,  not  by  those  of  others.     So 
loner  as  their   achievement  is   proportioned  to 
their  powers,  tliey  would  consider  it  prepos- 
terous to   expect  praise  or   blame   because  it 
chanced  to  be  great  or  small.     To  such  na- 
tures emulation  appears  philosophically  absurd, 
and  despicable  in  a  moral  aspect  by  its  substitu- 
tion of  envy  for  admiration,  and  exultation  for 
regret,  in  one's  attitude  toward  the  successes 
and  the  failures  of  others. 


I  So  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

"But  all  men,  even  in  the  last  year  of  the 
twentieth  century,  are  not  of  this  high  order, 
and  the  incentives  to  endeavor  requisite  for 
those  who  are  not,  must  be  of  a  sort  adapted 
to  their  inferior  natures.  For  these,  then, 
emulation  of  the  keenest  edge  is  provided  as 
a  constant  spur.  Those  who  need  this  motive 
w^ill  feel  it.  Those  who  are  above  its  influ- 
ence do  not  need  it. 

"I  should  not  fail  to  mention,"  resumed  the 
doctor,  ''  that  for  those  too  deficient  in  mental 
or  bodily  strength  to  be  fairly  graded  with  the 
main  body  of  workers,  we  have  a  separate 
grade,  unconnected  with  the  others,  —  a  sort 
oi  invalid  corps,  the  members  of  which  are 
provided  with  a  light  class  of  tasks  fitted  to 
their  strength.  All  our  sick  in  mind  or  body, 
all  our  deaf  and  dumb,  and  lame  and  blind 
and  crippled,  and  even  our  insane,  belong  to 
this  invalid  corps,  and  bear  its  insignia.  The 
strongest  often  do  nearly  a  man's  work,  the 
feeblest,  of  course,  nothin<:r ;  but  none  \\\\o  can 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  1«I 

do  anything  are  willing  quite  to  gi\e  up.  In 
their  lucid  intervals,  even  our  insane  are  eager 
to  do  what  they  can." 

"That  is  a  pretty  idea  of  the  invalid  corps," 
I  said.  "  Even  a  barbarian  from  the  nineteenth 
century  can  appreciate  that.  It  is  a  very 
graceful  way  of  disguising  charity,  and  must 
be  very  grateful  to  the  feelings  of  its  recip- 
ients." 

"  Charity  !  "  repeated  Dr.  Leete.  "  Did  you 
suppose  that  we  consider  the  incapable  class 
we  are  talking  of  objects  of  charity?" 

"Why,  naturally,"  I  said,  "inasmuch  as  they 
are  incapable  of  self-support." 

But  here  the  doctor  took  me  up  quickly. 

"Who  IS  capable  of  self-support?"  he  de- 
manded. "There  is  no  such  thing  in  a 
civilized  society  as  self-support.  In  a  state 
of  society  so  barbarous  as  not  even  to  know 
family  co-operation,  each  individual  may  pos- 
sibly support  himself,  though  even  then  for  a 
part  of  his  life  only  ;  but  from  the  moment  that 


1 82  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

men  begin  to  live  together,  and  constitute  even 
the  rudest  sort  of  society,  self-support  becomes 
impossible.  As  men  grow  more  civilized,  and 
the  subdivision  of  occupations  and  services  is 
carried  out,  a  complex  mutual  dependence 
becomes  the  universal  rule.  Every  man,  how- 
ever solitary  may  seem  his  occupation,  is  a 
member  of  a  vast  industrial  partnership,  as 
large  as  the  nation,  as  large  as  humanity.  The 
necessity  of  mutual  dependence  should  imply 
the  duty  and  guarantee  of  mutual  support ; 
and  that  it  did  not  in  your  day,  constituted 
the  essential  cruelty  and  unreason  of  your 
system." 

"That  may  all  be  so,"  I  replied,  "but  it  does 
not  touch  the  case  of  those  who  are  unable  to 
contribute  anything  to  the  product  of  industry." 

"  Surely,  I  told  3^ou  this  morning,  at  least  I 
thought  I  did,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "that  the 
right  of  a  man  to  maintenance  at  the  nation's 
table  depends  on  the  fact  that  he  is  a  man, 
and  not  on  the  amount  of  health  and  strength 
he  mav  have,  so  lonor  as  he  does  his  best." 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  183 

"You  said  so,"  I  answered,  "but  I  supposed 
the  rule  applied  only  to  the  ^vorker3  of  differ- 
ent  ability.     Does  it   also  hold  of  those  who 
can  do  nothing  at  all?" 
"  Are  they  not  also  men?  " 
"  I  am  to  understand,  then,  that  the  lame,  the 
blind,  the  sick  and  the  impotent,   are  as  w^ell 
off  as  the   most  efficient,   and  have  the   same 
income?  " 

"Certainly,"  w^as  the  reply. 
"The   idea  of  charity   on    such   a   scale,"  I 
answered,  "  would  have  made  our  most  enthusi- 
astic philantln-opists  gasp." 

"  If  you  had  a  sick  brother  at  home,"  replied 
Dr.  Leete,  "unable  to  work,  would  you  feed 
him  on  less  dainty  food,  and  lodge  and  clothe 
him  more  poorly,  than  yourself?  T^Iore  likely 
far,  you  would  give  him  the  preference  ;  nor 
would  you  think  of  calling  it  charity.  Would 
not  the  word,  in  that  connection,  iiU  you  with 
indignation  ?  " 

"Of  course,"  I  replied;   "but  the  cases  are 


184  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

not  parallel.  There  is  a  sense,  no  doubt,  in 
which  all  men  are  brothers  ;  but  this  general 
sort  of  brotherhood  is  not  to  be  compared, 
except  for  rhetorical  purposes,  to  the  brother- 
hood of  blood,  either  as  to  its  sentiment  or  its 
obligations." 

"There  speaks  the  nineteenth  century  !  "  ex- 
claimed Dr.  Leete.  "Ah,  Mr.  AVest,  there  is 
no  doubt  as  to  the  length  of  time  that  3^ou 
slept.  If  I  were  to  give  you,  in  one  sentence, 
a  key  to  what  may  seem  the  mysteries  of  our 
civilization  as  compared  with  that  of  your  age, 
I  should  say  that  it  is  the  fact  that  the  solidarity 
of  the  race  and  the  brotherhood  of  man,  which 
to  you  were  but  fine  phrases,  are,  to  our  think- 
ing and  feeling,  ties  as  real  and  as  vital  as 
physical  fraternity. 

"But  even  setting  that  consideration  aside,  I 
do  not  see  why  it  so  surprises  you  that  those 
who  cannot  work  are  conceded  the  full  right 
to  live  on  the  produce  of  those  who  can.  Even 
in  your  day,  the  duty  of  military  service  for 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  185 

the  protection  of  the  nation,  to  which  our  indus- 
trial  service   corresponds,  while  obhgatory  on 
those  able  to  discharge  it,  did  not  operate  to 
deprive  of  the  privileges  of  citizenship  those 
who  were  unable.     They  stayed  at  home,  and 
were  protected  by  those  who  fought,  and  no- 
body questioned  their  right  to  be,  or  thought 
less  of  them.     So,   now,   the   requirement  of 
industrial  service  from  those  able  to  render  it 
does  not  operate  to  deprive  of  the  privileges 
of  citizenship,  which  now  implies  the  citizen's 
maintenance,    liim    who    cannot   work.      The 
worker  is  not  a  citizen  because  he  works,  but 
works  because  he  is  a  citizen.     As  you  recog- 
nized the  duty  of  the  strong  to  fight  for  the 
weak,  we,  now  that  fighting  is  gone  by,  recog- 
nize his  duty  to  work  for  him. 

"A  solution  which  leaves  an  unaccounted 
for  residuum  is  no  solution  at  all;  and  our 
solution  of  the  problem  of  human  society 
would  liave  been  none  at  all  had  it  left  the 
lame,  the  sick,  and  the  blind  outside  with  the 


iB6  Looking  backward. 

beasts,  to  fare  as  they  might.  Better  far 
have  left  the  strong  and  well  unprovided 
for  than  these  burdened  ones,  toward  whom 
every  heart  must  3'earn,  and  for  whom  ease  of 
mind  and  body  should  be  provided,  if  for  no 
others.  Therefore  it  is,  as  I  told  you  this 
morning,  that  the  tide  of  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  to  the  means  of  existence  rests  on 
no  basis  less  plain,  broad  and  simple  than  the 
fact  that  they  are  fellows  of  one  race  —  mem- 
bers of  one  human  family.  The  only  coin 
current  is  the  image  of  God,  and  that  is 
good  for  all  we  have. 

"  I  think  there  is  no  feature  of  the  civiliza- 
tion of  your  epoch  so  repugnant  to  modern 
ideas  as  the  neglect  with  w^hich  you  treated 
your  dependent  classes.  Even  if  you  had  no 
pity,  no  feeling  of  brotherhood,  how  was  it 
that  you  did  not  see  that  you  were  robbing  tlie 
incapable  class  of  their  plain  right  in  leaving 
them  unprovided  for?" 

"  I  don't  quite  follow  you  there,"  I  said.     "  I 


LOOJCING   BACKWARD.  l37 

admit  the  claim  of  this  class  to  our  pity,  but 
how  could  they  who  produced  nothing  claim  a 
share  of  the  product  as  a  right?" 

"  How  happened  it,"  was  Dr.  Leete's  repl}- , 
"  that  3"our  workers  were  able  to  produce  more 
than  so  many  savages  would  have  done?  Was 
it  not  wholly  on  account  of  the  heritage  of  the 
past  knowledge  and  achievements  of  the  race, 
the  machinery  of  society,  thousands  of  years 
in  contriving,  found  by  you  ready-made  to 
your  hand?  How  did  you  come  to  be  pos- 
sessors of  this  knowledge  and  this  machinery, 
which  represent  nine  parts  to  one  contributed 
by  yourself,  in  the  value  of  your  product? 
You  inherited  it,  did  3'ou  not?  And  were  not 
these  otliers,  these  unfortunate  and  crippled 
iM-others  whom  3^ou  cast  out,  joint  inher- 
itors, co-heirs  with  you?  What  did  you  do 
with  their  share?  Did  you  not  rob  them, 
when  3'ou  put  them  off  with  crusts,  who  were 
entitled  to  sit  with  the  heirs,  and  did  3^ou  not 
add  insult  to  robber3''  when  3'ou  called  the 
crusts  charity  ? " 


:8^ 


LOOKING   BACKWARD. 


"Ah,  Mr.  West,"  Dr.  Leete  continued,  as  I 
did  not  respond,  '"what  I  do  not  understand 
is,  setting  aside  all  considerations  either  of 
justice  or  brotherly  feeling  toward  the  crippled 
and  detective,  how  the  workers  of  3-our  day 
could  have  had  any  heart  for  their  work, 
knowing  that  their  children,  or  grand-children, 
if  unfortunate,  would  be  deprived  of  the  com- 
forts and  even  necessities  of  life.  It  is  a  mys- 
tery how  men  with  children  could  favor  a 
system  under  which  they  were  rewarded  be- 
yond those  less  endowed  with  bodily  strength 
or  mental  power.  For,  by  the  same  discrim- 
ination by  which  the  father  profited,  the  son,  for 
whom  he  would  give  his  life,  being  perchance 
weaker  than  others,  might  be  reduced  to  crusts 
and  becfo^arv.  How  men  dared  leave  children 
behind  them,  I  have  never  been  able  to  under- 
stand." 


Note. — Although  in  his  talk  on  the  previous  evening  Dr.  I^eete  had 
emphasized  ilie  pains  taken  to  enable  every  man  to  ascertain  and  follow 
his  natural  bent  in  choosing  an  occupation,  it  was  not  till  I  learned  that 
the  worker's  income  is  the  same  m  all  occupations,  that  I  realized  how 
absolutely  he  nuiv  be  cour.ied  on  to  do  so,  and  thus,  by  selecting  the  har- 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  1^9 


ncss  which  sets  most  lig-htly  on  himself,  find  that  in  which  he  can  pull 
best.  The  failure  of  my  age  in  any  systematic  or  effective  way  to  develop 
and  utilize  the  natural  aptitudes  of  jnen,  for  tlie  industries  and  intel- 
lectual avocations,  was  one  of  the  great  wastes,  as  well  as  one  of  tlio 
most  common  c;iuses  of  unhappiness  in  that  time.  The  vast  majority 
of  my  contemporaries,  though  nominally  free  to  do  so,  never  really  chosji 
their  occupations  at  all,  but  were  forced  by  circumstancrs  inti  work  for 
which  they  were  relatively  inefficient,  because  not  naturally  fitted  for  it. 
The  rich,  in  this  respect,  had  little  advantage  over  the  poor.  The  latter, 
indeed,  being  generally  deprived  of  education,  had  no  opportunity  even 
to  ascertain  the  natural  aptitudes  they  might  have,  and,  on  account  of 
their  poverty,  were  unable  to  develop  them  by  cultivation,  even  when 
ascertained.  Tl-.e  liberal  and  technical  professions,  except  by  favorable 
accident,  were  shut  to  them,  to  their  own  great  loss  and  that  of  the 
nation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  well-to-do,  although  th.cy  could  com- 
mand  education  and  opportunity,  were  scarcely  less  hampered  by  social 
prejudice,  which  forbade  them  to  pursue  manual  avocations,  even  when 
adapted  to  tlicm,  and  destined  them,  wliether  fit  or  unfit,  to  the  profes- 
sions, thus  wasting  many  an  excellent  handicraftsman.  Mercenary  con- 
siderations, tempting  men  to  pursue  money-making  occupations  for 
which  they  were  unfit,  instead  of  less  remunerative  employments  for 
which  they  were  fit,  were  responsible  for  another  vast  perversion  of  tal- 
ent. All  these  things  now  are  changed.  Equal  education  and  oppor- 
tunity must  needs  bring  to  light  whatever  aptitudes  a  man  has,  and 
neither  social  prejudices  nor  mercenary  considerations  hamper  him  in 
the  choice  of  his  life  work. 


190  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

A  S  Edith  had  promised  he  should  do, 
■^  ^  Dr.  Leete  accompanied  me  to  my  bed- 
room when  I  retired,  to  instruct  me  as  to  the 
adjustment  of  the  musical  telephone.  He 
showed  how,  by  turning  a  screw,  the  volumj 
of  the  music  could  be  made  to  fill  the  room, 
or  die  away  to  an  echo  so  faint  and  far  that 
one  could  scarcely  be  sure  whether  he  heard 
or  imagined  it.  If,  of  two  persons  side  by 
side,  one  desired  to  listen  to  music  and  the 
other  to  sleep,  it  could  be  made  audible  to  one 
and  inaudible  to  another. 

''  I  should  strongly  advise  you  to  sleep  if 
you  can  to-night,  Mr.  West,  in  preference  to 
listening  to  the  finest  tunes  in  the  world,"  the 
doctor  said,  after  explaining  these  points.  "In 
the  trying  experience  you  are  just  now  passing 
through,  sleep  is  a  nerve  tonic  for  which  there 
is  no  substitute." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I9I 

Mindful  of  what  had  happened  to  me  that 
very  morning,  I  promised  to  heed  his  counsel. 

"Very  well,"  he  said;  "then  I  will  set  the 
telephone  at  eight  o'clock." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  asked. 

He  explained  that,  by  a  clock-work  combi- 
nation, a  person  could  arrange  to  be  awakened 
at  any  hour  by  the  music. 

It  began  to  appear,  as  has  since  fully  proved 
to  be  the  case,  that  I  had  left  vsxy  tendency  to 
insomnia  behind  me  with  the  other  discomforts 
of  existence  in  the  nineteenth  century ;  for 
though  I  took  no  sleeping  drauglit  this  time, 
yet,  as  the  night  before,  I  had  no  sooner 
touched  the  pillow  than  I  Vv^as  asleep. 

I  dreamed  that  I  sat  on  the  throne  of  the 
Abencerrages  in  the  banqueting  hall  of  the 
Alhambra,  feasting  my  lords  and  generals, 
who  next  day  were  to  follow  the  crescent 
against  the  Christian  dogs  of  Spain.  The  air, 
cooled  by  the  spray  of  fountains,  was  heavy 
with  the  scent  of  flowers.     A  band  of  Nautch 


192  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

girls,  round-limbed  and  luscious-lipped,  danced 
with  voluptuous  grace  to  the  music  of  brazen 
and  stringed  instruments.  Looking  up  to  the 
latticed  galleries,  one  caught  a  gleam  now  and 
then  from  the  eye  of  some  beauty  of  the  royal 
harem,  looking  down  upon  the  assembled 
flower  of  Moorish  chivalry.  Louder  and 
louder  clashed  the  cymbals,  wilder  and  wilder 
grew  the  strain,  till  the  blood  of  the  desert 
race  could  no  longer  resist  the  martial  delir- 
ium, and  the  sv/art  nobles  leaped  to  their  feet; 
a  thousand  scimetars  w^ere  bared,  and  the  cry, 
"Allah  il  Allah  !"'  shook  the  hall  and  awoke 
me,  to  find  it  broad  daylight,  and  the  room 
tingling  with  the  electric  music  of  the  "  Turk- 
ish Reveille." 

At  the  breakfast-table,  when  I  told  my  host 
of  my  morning's  experience,  I  learned  that  it 
was  not  a  mere  chance  that  the  piece  of  music 
which  awakened  me  was  a  reveille.  The  airs 
played  at  one  of  tlie  lialls  during  the  waking 
hours  of  the  morning  were  always  of  an  inspir- 
ing  type. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  1 93 

"By  the  way,"  I  said,  "that  reminds  me, 
talking  of  Spain,  that  I  have  not  thought  to 
ask  3^ou  an3^thing  about  the  state  of  Europe. 
Have  the  societies  of  the  Old  World  also  been 
remodeled?  " 

"Yes,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "the  great  nations 
of  Europe,  as  well  as  Australia,  Mexico,  and 
parts  of  South  America,  are  nov/  industrial 
republics  like  the  United  States,  which  was  the 
pioneer  of  the  evolution.  The  peaceful  rela- 
tions of  these  nations  are  assured  by  a  loose 
form  of  federal  union  of  world-wide  extent. 
An  international  council  regulates  the  mutual 
intercourse  and  commerce  of  the  mem.bers  of 
the  union,  and  their  jV-Jnt  policy  toward  the 
more  backward  races,  v.hicli  are  gradually 
being  educated  up  to  civilized  institutions. 
Complete  autonomy  v/ithin  its  own  limits  is 
enjoyed  by  every  nation." 

"  How  do  3'ou  carry  on  commerce  without 
money?"  I  said.  "In  trading  with  other 
nations,  you   must   use   some   sort  of  mone}', 


194  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

although  you  dispense  with  it  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  the  nation." 

"  Oh,  no  ;  money  is  as  superfluous  in  our  for- 
eif^n  as  in  our  internal  relations.  When  foreign 
commerce  was  conducted  by  private  enterprise, 
money  was  necessary  to  adjust  it  on  account 
of  the  multifarious  complexity  of  the  transac- 
tions;  but  nowadays  it  is  a  function  of  the 
nations  as  units.  There  are  thus  only  a  dozen 
or  so  merchants  in  the  world,  and  their  busi- 
ness being  supervised  by  the  international 
council,  a  simple  system  of  book  accounts 
serves  perlecth^  to  regulate  their  dealings. 
Each  nation  has  a  bureau  of  foreign  exchano^e, 
which  manages  its  trading.  For  example, 
the  American  bureau,  estimating  such  and 
such  quantities  of  French  goods  necessary  to 
America  for  a  o-iven  year,  sends  the  order  to 
the  French  bureau,  which  in  turn  sends  its 
order  to  our  bureau.  The  same  is  done 
mutually  by  all  the  nations." 

"But  how  are  the  prices  of  foreign  goods 
settled,  since  there  is  no  competition?" 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I95 

"  The  price  at  which  one  nation  supplies 
another  with  goods,"  repHed  Dr.  Leete,  "must 
be  that  at  w^hich  it  suppHes  its  own  citizens.  So 
you  see  there  is  no  danger  of  misunderstand- 
ing. Of  course  no  nation  is  theoretically 
bound  to  supply  another  with  the  product  of 
its  own  labor,  but  it  is  for  the  interest  of  all  to 
exchange  commodities.  If  a  nation  is  regu- 
larly supplying  anotlier  with  certain  goods, 
notice  is  required  from  either  side  of  any 
important  change  in  the  relation." 

"But  what  if  a  nation,  having  a  monopoly 
of  some  natural  product,  should  refuse  to  sup- 
ply it  to  the  others,  or  to  one  of  them?" 

"Such  a  case  has  never  occurred,  and  could 
not  without  doing  the  refusing  party  vastly 
more  harm  than  the  others,"  replied  Dr.  Leete. 
"  In  the  first  place,  no  favoritism  could  be 
shown.  The  law  requires  that  each  nation 
shall  deal  w^ith  the  others,  in  all  respects,  on 
exactly  the  same  footing.  Such  a  course  as 
you  suggest  would  cut  off  the  nation  adopting 


196  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

it  from  the  remainder  of  the  earth  for  all  pur- 
poses whatever.  The  contingency  is  one  that 
need  not  give  us  much  anxiety." 

"But,"  said  I,  "supposing  a  nation,  having 
a  natural  monopoly  in  some  product  of  Vv'hich 
it  exports  more  than  it  consumes,  should  put 
the  price  away  up,  and  thus,  without  cutting 
off  the  supply,  make  a  profit  out  of  its  neigh- 
bors' necessities?  Its  own  citizens  would,  of 
course,  have  to  pay  the  higher  price  on  that 
commodity,  but  as  a  bod}'  would  make  more 
out  of  foreigners  than  they  would  be  out  of 
pocket  themselves." 

"When  you  come  to  know  how  prices  of  all 
commodities  are  determined  nowadays,  you 
will  perceive  how  impossible  it  is  that  they 
could  be  altered,  except  with  reference  to  the 
amount  or  arduousness  of  the  work  required 
respectively  to  produce  them,"  was  Dr.  Leete's 
reply.  "This  principle  is  an  international  as 
well  as  a  national  guarantee  ;  but  even  without 
it  the  sense  of  community  of  interest,  interna- 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  1 97 

tional  as  well  as  national,  and  the  conviction 
of  the  folly  of  selfishness,  are  too  deep  nowa- 
days to  render  possible  such  a  piece  of  sharp 
practice  as  you  apprehend.  You  must  under- 
stand that  we  all  look  forward  to  an  eventual 
unification  of  the  world  as  one  nation.  That, 
no  doubt,  will  be  the  ultimate  form  of  society, 
and  will  realize  certain  economic  advantaires 
over  the  present  federal  system  of  autonomous 
nations.  Meanwdiile,  however,  the  present 
system  works  so  nearly  perfectly  that  we  are 
quite  content  to  leave  to  posterity  the  comple- 
tion of  the  scheme.  There  are,  indeed,  some 
who  hold  that  it  never  will  be  completed,  on 
the  ground  that  the  federal  plan  is  not  merely 
a  provisional  solution  of  the  problem  of  human 
society,  but  the  best  ultimate  solution." 

"  How  do  you  manage,"  I  asked,  ''  when  the 
books  o{  any  tw^o  nations  do  not  balance? 
Supposing  Wit  import  more  from  France  than 
we  export  to  her." 

''  At  the  end  of  each  year,"  replied  the  doc- 


198  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

tor,  "the  books  of  every  nation  are  examined. 
If  France  is  found  in  our  debt,  probably  we 
are  in  tlie  debt  of  some  nation  which  owes 
France,  and  so  on  with  all  the  nations.  The 
balances  that  remain  after  the  accounts  have 
been  cleared  by  the  international  council, 
should  not  be  large  under  our  system.  What- 
ever they  ma}^  be,  the  council  requires  them  to 
f)e  settled  every  few  years,  and  may  require 
their  settlement  at  an}-  time  if  they  are  getting 
too  large  ;  for  it  is  not  intended  that  any  nation 
shall  run  largely  in  debt  to  another,  lest  feel- 
ings unfavorable  to  amity  should  be  engen- 
dered. To  guard  further  against  this,  the 
international  council  inspects  the  commodities 
interchanged  by  the  nations,  to  see  that  the}' 
are  of  perfect  qualit3\" 

"But  what  are  the  balances  finally  settled 
with,   seeing  that  you  have  no  money?" 

"  In  national  staples ;  a  basis  of  agreement 
as  to  what  staples  shall  be  accepted,  and  in 
what  proportions,  for  settlement  of  accounts, 
being  a  preliminary  to  trade  relations." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  I99 

"  Emigration  is  another  point  I  want  to  ask 
you  about,"  said  I.  "With  every  nation  organ- 
ized as  a  close  industrial  partnership,  monopo- 
lizing all  means  of  production  in  the  country, 
the  emigrant,  even  if  he  were  permitted  to 
land,  would  starve.  I  suppose  there  is  no 
emigration  nowadays." 

"  On  the  contrary,  there  is  constant  emigra- 
tion, by  which  I  suppose  you  mean  removal  to 
foreign  countries  for  permanent  residence," 
replied  Dr.  Leete.  "  It  is  arranged  on  a  sim- 
ple international  arrangement  of  indemnities. 
For  example,  if  a  man  at  twenty-one  emi- 
grates from  England  to  America,  England 
loses  all  the  expense  of  his  maintenance  and 
education,  and  America  gets  a  workman  for 
nothing.  America  accordingly  makes  Eng- 
land an  allowance.  The  same  principle, 
varied  to  suit  the.  case,  applies  generally.  If 
the  man  is  near  the  term  of  his  labor  when  he 
emigrates,  the  country  receiving  him  has  the 
allowance.      As    to    imbecile    persons,    it    is 


2CO  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

deemed  best  that  each  nation  should  be  re- 
sponsible for  its  own,  and  the  emigration  of 
such  must  be  under  full  guarantees  of  support 
by  his  own  nation.  Subject  to  these  regu- 
lations, the  right  of  any  man  to  emigrate  at 
any  time  is  unrestricted." 

"  But  how  about  mere  pleasure  trips ;  tours 
of  observation  ?  How  can  a  stranger  travel  in 
a  countr}-  whose  people  do  not  receive  money, 
and  are  themselves  supplied  with  the  means 
of  life  on  a  basis  not  extended  to  him?  His 
own  credit  card  cannot,  of  course,  be  good  in 
other  lands.     How  does  he  pay  his  wa}-?" 

"An  American  credit  card,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete,  "is  just  as  good  in  Europe  as  Ameri- 
can gold  used  to  be,  and  on  precisely  the 
same  condition,  namely,  that  it  be  exchanged 
into  the  currency  of  the  country  you  are  trav- 
elling in.  An  American  in  Berlin  takes  his 
credit  card  to  the  local  office  of  the  interna- 
tional council,  and  receives  in  exchange  for 
the  whole  or  part  of  it  a  German  credit  card, 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  20I 

the  amount  being  charged  against  the  United 
States  in  favor  of  Germany  on  the  international 
account." 


"Perhaps  Mr.  West  would  like  to  dine  at 
the  Elephant,  to-day,"  said  Edith,  as  we  left 
the  table. 

"That  is  the  name  we  give  to  the  general 
dining-house  of  our  ward,"  explained  her 
father.  "  Not  only  is  our  cooking  done  at  the 
public  kitchens,  as  I  told  you  last  night,  but 
the  service  and  quality  of  the  meals  are 
much  more  satisfactory  if  taken  at  the  dining- 
house.  The  tw^o  minor  meals  of  the  day  are 
usually  taken  at  home,  as  not  worth  the  trouble 
of  going  out ;  but  it  is  general  to  go  out  to 
dine.  We  have  not  done  so  since  you  have 
been  with  us,  from  a  notion  that  it  would  be 
better  to  wait  till  you  had  become  a  little  more 
familiar  with  our  ways.  What  do  3'ou  think? 
Shall  we  take  dinner  at  the  dining-house 
to-day?" 


202  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

I  said  that  I  should  be  very  much  pleased  to 
do  so. 

Not  long  after,  Edith  came  to  me,  smiling, 
and  said  : 

"Last  night,  as  I  was  thinking  what  I  could 
do  to  make  you  feel  at  home  until  you  came 
to  be  a  little  more  used  to  us  and  our  ways,  an 
idea  occurred  to  me.  What  would  you  say  if 
I  were  to  introduce  you  to  some  very  nice  peo- 
ple of  your  own  times,  whom  I  am  sure  you 
used  to  be  w^ell  acquainted  with?" 

I  replied  rather  vaguely  that  it  would  cer- 
tainly be  very  agreeable,  but  I  did  not  see  how 
she  was  going  to  manage  it. 

"Come  with  me,*'  was  her  smiling  reply, 
"  and  see  if  I  am  not  as  good  as  my  word." 

My  susceptibility  to  surprise  had  been  pret- 
ty well  exhausted  by  the  numerous  shocks 
it  had  received,  but  it  was  with  some  wonder- 
ment that  I  followed  her  into  a  room  which  I 
had  not  before  entered.  It  was  a  small,  cosy 
apartment,  walled  with  cases  failed  with  books. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  203 

"Here  are  your  friends,"  said  Edith,  indi- 
cating one  of  the  cases,  and  as  my  eye  glanced 
over  the  names  on  the  backs  of  the  volumes, 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  Wordsworth,  Shelley, 
Tennyson,  Defoe,  Dickens,  Thackeray, 
Hugo,  Hawthorne,  Irving,  and  a  score  of 
other  great  writers  of  my  time  and  all  time, 
I  understood  her  meaning.  She  had  indeed 
made  good  her  promise  in  a  sense  compared 
with  which  its  literal  fulfilment  would  have 
been  a  disappointment.  She  had  introduced 
me  to  a  circle  of  friends  whom  the  cen- 
tury that  had  elapsed  since  last  I  communed 
with  them  had  aged  as  litde  as  it  had  myself. 
Their  spirit  Vv-as  as  high,  their  wit  as  keen, 
their  laughter  and  their  tears  as  contagious  as 
when  their  speech  had  whiled  away  the  hours 
of  a  former  century.  Lonely  I  was  not  and 
could  not  be  more,  with  this  goodly  compan- 
ionship, however  wide  the  gulf  of  years  that 
gaped  between  me  and  my  old  life. 

"You  are  glad  I  brought  you  here,"  ex- 


204  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

claimed  Edith,  radiant,  as  she  read  in  my  face 
the  success  of  her  experiment.  ''  It  was  a 
good  idea,  was  it  not,  ?Jr.  West?  How  stupid 
in  me  not  to  tliink  of  it  before  !  I  will  leave 
you  now  with  your  old  friends,  for  I  know 
there  will  be  no  company  for  you  like  them 
just  now ;  but  remember  you  must  not  let 
old  friends  make  you  quite  forget  new  ones  !  " 
and  with  that  smilino;  caution  she  left  me. 

Attracted  by  the  most  familiar  of  the  names 
before  me,  I  laid  my  hand  on  a  volume  of 
Dickens,  and  sat  down  to  read.  He  had 
always  been  my  prime  favorite  among  the 
book-writers  of  the  century,  —  I  mean  the  nine- 
teenth century,  —  and  a  week  had  rarely 
passed  in  my  old  lite  during  which  I  had  not 
taken  up  some  volume  of  his  works  to  while 
away  an  idle  hour.  Any  volume  with  which 
I  had  been  familiar  would  have  produced  an 
extraordinary  impression,  read  under  my  pres- 
ent circumstances,  but  m}^  exceptional  famil- 
iarity with  Dickens,  and  his  consequent  power 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  205 

to  call  up  tlie  associations  of  my  former  life, 
irave  to  his  writings  an  effect  no  others  could 
have  had,  to  intensify,  by  force  of  contrast,  my 
appreciation  of  the  strangeness  of  my  present 
environment.  However  new  and  astonishing 
one's  surroundings,  the  tendencj'  is  to  become 
a  part  of  them  so  soon  tb.at  almost  from  the 
iirst  the  power  to  see  them  objectively  and 
fully  measure  their  strangeness,  is  lost. 
That  power  already  dulled  in  m}^  case, 
the  pages  of  Dickens  restored  by  carr3dng 
me  back  through  their  associations  to  the 
standpoint  of  my  former  lile.  With  a  clear- 
ness which  I  had  not  been  able  before  to 
attain,  I  saw  novv^  the  past  and  present,  like 
contrasting  pictures,  side  b}^  side. 

The  genius  of  the  great  novelist  of  the  nine- 
teenth centur}',  like  that  of  Homer,  might 
indeed  defy  time;  but  the  setting  of  his  pa- 
thetic tales,  the  miser}^  of  the  poor,  the  wrongs 
of  power,  the  pitiless  cruelty  of  the  system  of 
societ}',  had  passed  away  as  utterh^  as  Circe 
i^nd  the  sirens,  Charybdis  and  Cyclops. 


206  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

During  the  hour  or  two  that  I  sat  there  with 
Dickens  open  before  me,  I  did  not  actuall_>' 
read  more  than  a  couple  cf  pages.  Every 
paragraph,  ever}^  phrase,  brought  up  some 
«  new  aspect  of  the  world-transformation  which 
had  taken  place,  and  led  my  thoughts  on  long 
and  widely  ramifying  excursions.  As  medi- 
tating thus  in  Dr.  Leete's  library,  I  gradually 
attained  a  more  clear  and  coherent  idea  of  the 
prodigious  spectacle  which  I  had  been  so 
strangely  enabled  to  view,  I  was  filled  with  a 
deepening  wonder  at  the  seeming  capricious- 
ness  of  the  fate  that  had  given  to  one  who 
so  little  deserved  it,  or  seemed  in  any  WTty  set 
apart  for  it,  the  power  alone  among  his  con- 
temporaries to  stand  upon  the  earth  in  this 
latter  day.  I  had  neither  foreseen  the  new 
world  nor  toiled  for  it,  as  many  about  me  had 
done,  regardless  of  the  scorn  of  fools  or  the 
misconstruction  of  the  good.  Surely  it  would 
have  be^n  more  in  accordance  with  the  fitness 
of  things,    had   one   of  those   prophetic  and 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  207 

Strenuous  souls  been  enabled  to  see  the  travail 
of  his  soul  and  be  satisfied,  he,  for  example,  a 
thousand  times  rather  than  I,  who,  having  be- 
held in  a  vision  the  world  I  looked  on,  sang  of 
it  in  words  that  again  and  again,  during  these 
last  wondrous  days,  had  rung  in  my  mind  : 

For  I  dipt  into  the  future,  far  as  human  eye  could  see, 
Saw  the  vision  of  the  world,  and  all  the  wonder  that  would 

be; 
Till  the  war-drum  throbbed  no  longer,  and  the  battle-flags 

were  furled 
In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world. 

Then  the  common  sense  of  most  shall  hold  a  fretful  realm 

in  awe, 
And   the    kindly    earth    shall    slumber,   lapt    in    universal 

law. 

For  I  doubt  not  through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose 

runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  process  of 

the  suns. 

What  though,  in  his  old  age,  he  momen- 
tarily lost  faith  in  his  own  prediction,  as 
prophets  in  their  hours  of  depression  and 
doubt  generally  do,  the  words  had  remained 
eternal  testimony  to  the  seership  of  a  poet's 
heart,  the  insight  that  is  given  to  faith. 


208  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

I  was  still  ill  the  library  when  some  house 
later  Dr.  Leete  sought  me  there.  '^  Edith 
told  me  of  her  idea,"  he  said,  "and  I  thought 
it  an  excellent  one.  I  had  a  little  curi- 
osity what  writer  you  would  first  turn  to. 
Ah,  Dickens  !  You  admired  him,  then  !  That 
is  where  we  moderns  agree  with  j-ou. 
Judged  by  our  standards,  he  overtops  all  the 
writers  of  his  age,  not  because  his  literary 
genius  was  highest,  but  because  his  great 
heart  beat  for  the  poor,  because  he  made 
the  cause  of  the  victims  of  society  his  own 
and  devoted  his  pen  to  exposing  its  cruelties 
and  shams.  No  man  of  liis  time  did  so 
much  as  he  to  turn  men's  minds  to  the  wrono- 

o 

and  wretchedness  of  the  old  order  of  things, 
and  open  their  eyes  to  the  nccessit}^  of  the 
great  change  that  was  coming,  although  he 
himself  did  not  clearly  foresee  it." 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  209 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

\  HEAVY  rainstorm  came  up  during 
•^  ^  the  day,  and  I  had  concluded  that  the 
condition  of  the  streets  would  be  such  that 
my  hosts  would  have  to  give  up  the  idea 
of  going  out  to  dinner,  although  the  dining- 
hall  I  had  understood  to  be  quite  near.  I 
was  much  surprised  when  at  the  dinner 
hour  the  ladies  appeared  prepared  to  go  out, 
but  without  either  rubbers  or  umbrellas. 

The  mystery  was  explained  when  we  found 
ourselves  on  the  street,  for  a  continuous  water- 
proof covering  had  been  let  down  so  as  to 
enclose  the  sidewalk  and  turn  it  into  a  well 
lighted  and  perfectly  dry  corridor,  which  was 
filled  with  a  stream  of  ladies  and  gentlemen 
dressed  for  dinner.  At  the  corners  light 
bridges,  similarly  covered  in,  led  over  the 
streets.     Edith   Leete,  with    whom   I  walked, 


210  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

seemed  much  interested  in  learning,  what 
appeared  to  be  entirely  new  to  her,  that 
in  the  stormy  weather  the  streets  of  the 
Boston  of  my  day  had  been  impassable, 
except  to  persons  protected  by  umbrellas, 
boots,  and  heav}'  clothing.  "Were  side- 
walk coverings  not  used  at  all?  "she  asked. 
They  wore  used,  I  explained,  but  in  a  scat- 
tered and  utterly  unsystematic  way,  being 
private  enterprises.  She  said  to  me  that  at 
the  present  time  all  the  streets  w^ere  provided 
against  inclement  weather  in  the  manner  I 
saw,  the  apparatus  being  rolled  out  of  the 
way  when  it  was  unnecessary.  She  intimated 
that  it  would  be  considered  an  extraordinary 
imbecility  to  permit  the  weather  to  have  any 
effect  on  the  social  movements  of  the  people. 
Dr.  Leete,  who  was  walking  ahead,  over- 
hearing something  of  our  talk,  turned  to  say 
that  the  difference  between  tlie  age  of  indi- 
vidualism and  tliat  of  concert,  was  well  char- 
acterized by  the   fact   that,  in  the  nineteenth 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  211 

century,  when  it  rained,  the  people  of  Boston 
put  up  three  hundred  thousand  umbrellas  over 
as  many  heads,  and  in  the  twentieth  century 
they  put  up  one  umbrella  over  all  the  heads. 

As  we  walked  on  EdUh  said,  "The  private 
umbrella  is  father's  favorite  figure  to  illustrate 
the  old  way  when  everybody  lived  for  him- 
self and  his  family.  There  is  a  nineteenth 
century  painting  at  the  art  gallery  representing 
a  crowd  of  people  in  the  rain,  each  one  hold- 
ing his  umbrella  over  himself  and  his  wife,  and 
giving  his  neighbors  the  drippings,  which  he 
claims  must  have  been  meant  by  the  artist  as  a 
satire  on  his  times." 

We  now  entered  a  large  building  into  which 
a  stream  of  people  was  pouring.  I  could 
not  see  the  front,  owing  to  the  awming,  but, 
if  in  correspondence  with  the  interior,  which 
was  even  finer  than  the  store  I  visited  the  day 
before,  it  would  have  been  magnificent.  My 
companion  said  that  the  sculptured  group  over 
the  entrance  was  especially  admired.     Going 


212  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

up  a  grand  staircase  we  walked  some  distance 
along  a  broad  corridor  with  many  doors  open- 
ing upon  it.  At  one  of  these,  which  bore  my 
host's  name,  we  turned  in,  and  I  found  myself 
in  an  eleo^ant  dinin£>;-room  containino-  a  table 
for  four.  Windows  opened  on  a  courtyard 
where  a  fountain  played  to  a  great  height,  and 
music  made  the  air  electric. 

"You  seem  at  home  here,"  I  said,  as  we 
seated  ourselves  at  table,  and  Dr.  Leete 
touched  an  annunciator. 

^'  This  is,  in  fact,  a  part  of  our  house,  slightly 
detached  from  tlie  rest,"  he  replied.  "Every 
family  in  the  ward  has  a  room  set  apart  in  this 
great  building  for  its  permanent  and  exclusive 
use  for  a  small  annual  rental.  For  transient 
guests  and  individuals  there  is  accommodation 
on  another  floor.  If  we  expect  to  dine  here, 
we  put  in  our  orders  the  night  before,  select- 
ing anything  in  market,  according  to  the 
daily  reports  in  the  papers.  The  meal  is  as 
'expensive  or  as  simiple  as  we  please,  though  of 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  213 

course  everything  is  vastly  cheaper  as  well  as 
better  than  it  would  be  if  prepared  at  home. 
There  is  actuall}^  nothing  which  our  people  take 
more  interest  in  than  the  perfection  of  the  cater- 
ing and  cooking  done  for  them,  and  I  admit 
that  we  are  a  little  vain  of  the  success  that  has 
been  attained  by  this  branch  of  the  service. 
Ah,  my  dear  Mr,  West,  though  other  aspects 
of  your  civilization  were  more  tragical,  I  can 
imaccine  that  none  could  have  been  more  de- 
pressing  than  the  poor  dinners  you  had  to  eat, 
that  is,  all  of  you  who  had  not  great  Vv^ealth." 

"  You  would  have  found  none  of  us  disposed 
to  disagree  with  you  on  that  point,"  I  said. 

The  waiter,  a  fine  looking  3'oung  fellow, 
wearing  a  slightly  distinctive  uniform,  now 
made  his  appearance.  I  observed  him  closely, 
as  it  was  the  first  time  I  had  been  able  to 
study  particularly  the  bearing  of  one  of  the 
enlisted  members  of  the  industrial  army.  This 
young  man,  I  knew  from  what  I  had  been 
told,  must  be  highly  educated,  and  the  equal, 


214  LOOKING  BA  CKWARD. 

socially  and  in  all  respects,  of  those  he  served. 
But  it  was  perfectly  evident  that  to  neither  side 
was  the  situation  in  the  slightest  degree  embar- 
.rassing.  Dr.  Leete  addressed  the  young  man 
in  a  tone  devoid,  of  course,  as  any  gentleman's 
would  be,  of  superciliousness,  but  at  the  same 
time  not  any  way  deprecatory,  while  the  man- 
ner of  the  young  man  was  simply  that  of  a 
person  intent  on  discharging  correctly  the  task 
he  was  engaged  in,  equally  without  familiarity 
or  obsequiousness.  It  was,  in  fact,  the  man- 
ner of  a  soldier  on  duty,  but  without  the  mili- 
tary stiffness.  As  the  youth  left  the  room,  I 
said,  "  I  cannot  get  over  my  wonder  at  seeing  a 
young  man  like  that  serving  so  contentedly  in 
a  menial  position." 

"What  is  that  word  'menial'?  I  never 
heard  it,"  said  Edith. 

"It  is  obsolete  now,"  remarked  her  father. 
"If  I  understand  it  rightly,  it  applied  to  per- 
sons who  performed  particularly  disagreeable 
and  unpleasant  tasks  for  others,  and    carried 


tOOklNG  BACKWARD,  ll^ 

with  it  an  implication  of  contempt.    Was  it  not 
so,  Mr.  West?" 

"That  is  about  it,"  I  said.  "Personal  ser- 
vice, such  as  waiting  on  tables,  was  considered 
menial,  and  held  in  such  contempt,  in  m}^  day, 
that  persons  of  culture  and  refinement  would 
suffer  hardship  before  condescending  to  it." 

"What  a  strangely  artificial  idea,"  exclaimed 
Mrs.  Leete,  wonderingly. 

"And  yet  these  services  had  to  be  ren- 
dered," said  Edith. 

"Of  course,"  I  replied.  "But  we  imposed 
them  on  the  poor,  and  those  who  had  no  alter- 
native but  starvation." 

"  And  increased  the  burden  you  imposed  on 
them  by  adding  your  contempt,"  remarked  Dr. 
Leete. 

"I  don't  think  I  clearly  understand,"  said 
Edith.  "Do  you  mean  that  3'ou  permitted 
people  to  do  things  for  you  which  you  despised 
them  for  doing,  or  that  you  accepted  services 
from  them  which  you  would  have  been  unwill- 


2l6  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

ing  to  render  them?  You  can't  surely  mean 
that,  Mr.  West?" 

I  was  obhged  to  tell  her  that  the  fact  was 
just  as  she  had  stated.  Dr.  Leete,  however, 
came  to  my  relief. 

"To  understand  why  Edith  is  surprised,"  he 
said,  "  you  must  know  that  nowadays  it  is  an 
axiom  of  ethics  that  to  accept  a  service  from 
another  which  we  would  be  unwilling  to  return 
in  kind,  if  need  were,  is  like  borrowing  with 
the  intention  of  not  repaying,  while  to  enforce 
such  a  service  by  taking  advantage  of  the  pov- 
erty or  necessity  of  a  person  would  be  an  out- 
rage like  forcible  robbery.  It  is  the  worst 
thing  about  any  system  which  divides  men,  or 
allows  them  to  be  divided,  into  classes  and 
castes,  that  it  weakens  the  sense  of  a  common 
humanity.  Unequal  distribution  of  wealth, 
and,  still  more  effectuall}',  unequal  opportuni- 
ties of  education  and  culture,  divided  society  in 
your  day  into  classes  which,  in  many  respects, 
regarded  each  other  as  distinct  races.     There 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  217 

is  not,  after  all,  such  a  difference  as  might 
appear  between  our  ways  of  looking  at  this 
question  of  service.  Ladies  and  gentlemen  of 
the  cultured  class  in  your  day  would  no  more 
have  permitted  persons  of  their  own  class  to 
render  them  services  they  would  scorn  to 
return  than  we  would  permit  anybody  to  do 
so.  The  poor  and  the  uncultured,  however, 
they  looked  upon  as  of  another  kind  from 
themselves.  The  equal  wealth  and  equal 
opportunities  of  culture  which  all  persons  now 
enjoy  have  simply  made  us  all  members  of 
one  class,  which  corresponds  to  the  most  for- 
tunate class  w^ith  you.  Until  this  equality  of 
condition  had  come  to  pass,  the  idea  of  the 
solidarity  of  humanity,  the  brotherhood  of  all 
men  could  never  have  become  the  real  convic- 
tion and  practical  principle  of  action  it  is  now- 
adays. In  your  day  the  same  phrases  were 
indeed  used,  but  they  were  phrases  merely." 
"Do  the  waiters,  also,  volunteer?" 
"No,"  replied  Dr.  Leete.     " The  waiters  are 


2l8  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

young  men  in  the  unclassified  grade  of  the 
industrial  army  who  are  assignable  to  all 
sorts  of  miscellaneous  occupations  not  requir- 
ing special  skill.  Waiting  on  table  is  one  of 
these,  and  every  young  recruit  is  given  a  taste 
of  it.  I  myself  served  as  a  waiter  for  several 
months  in  this  very  dining-house  some  fort}' 
years  ago.  Once  more  you  must  remember 
that  there  is  recognized  no  sort  of  difference 
between  the  dignity  of  the  different  sorts  of 
work  required  by  the  nation.  The  individual 
is  never  regarded,  nor  regards  himself,  as  the 
servant  of  those  he  serves,  nor  is  he  in  any 
way  dependent  upon  them.  It  is  always  the 
nation  which  he  is  serving.  No  difference  is 
recognized  between  a  waiter's  functions  and 
those  of  any  other  worker.  The  fact  that  his 
is  a  personal  service  is  indifferent  from  our 
point  of  view.  So  is  a  doctor's.  I  should  as 
soon  expect  our  w^aiter  to-day  to  look  down  on 
me  because  I  served  him  as  a  doctor,  as  think 
of  looking  down  on  him  because  he  serves  me 
as  a  wMiter." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  219 

After  dinner  my  entertainers  conducted  me 
about  the  building,  of  which  the  extent,  the 
magnificent  architecture  and  richness  of  em- 
bellishment astonished  me.  It  seemed  that  it 
was  not  merely  a  dining-hall,  but  likewise  a 
great  pleasure-house  and  social  rendezvous  of 
the  quarter,  and  no  appliance  of  entertainment 
or  recreation  seemed  lacking. 

"You  find  illustrated  here,"  said  Dr.  Leete, 
when  I  had  expressed  my  admiration,  "what  I 
said  to  you  in  our  first  conversation,  Vv^hen  you 
were  looking  out  over  the  city,  as  to  the  splen- 
dor of  our  public  and  common  life  as  compared 
with  the  simphcity  of  our  private  and  home  life, 
and  the  contrast  which,  in  this  respect,  the 
twentieth  bears  to  the  nineteenth  century.  To 
save  ourselves  useless  burdens,  we  have  as  lit- 
tle gear  about  us  at  home  as  is  consistent  with 
comfort,  but  the  social  side  of  our  life  is  ornate 
and  luxurious  beyond  anything  the  world  ever 
knew  before.  All  the  industrial  and  profes- 
sional guilds  have  club-houses  as  extensive  as 


220  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

this,  as  well  as  country,  mountain,  and  seaside 
houses  for  sport  and  rest  in  vacations." 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  became  a  practice 
of  needy  young-  men  at  some  of  the  colleges  of  the  country,  to  earn  a 
litilc  money  for  their  term  bills  by  serving  as  waiters  on  tables  at  hotels 
during  the  long  summer  vacation.  It  was  cLumed,  in  reply  to  critics 
who  expressed  the  prejudices  of  the  time  in  asserting  that  persons  vol- 
untarily following  such  an  occupation  could  not  be  gentlemen,  that  they 
were  entitled  to  praise  for  vindicating,  by  their  example,  the  dignity  of 
all  honest  and  necessary  labor.  The  use  of  this  argument  illustrates  a 
common  confusion  in  thought  on  the  part  of  my  former  contemporaries. 
The  business  of  waiting  on  tables  was  in  no  more  need  of  defence  than 
most  of  tlic  other  ways  of  getting  a  living  in  that  day,  but  to  talk  of 
dignity  attaching  to  labor  of  any  sort  under  the  system  then  prevailing 
was  absurd.  There  is  no  way  in  which  selling  labor  for  the  highest 
price  it  wi.l  fetch  ii  more  dignified  than  selling  goods  for  what  can  be 
got.  Both  were  commercial  transactions  to  be  judged  by  the  commer- 
cial standard.  V>y  setting  a  price  in  money  on  his  service,  the  worker 
accepted  the  money  measure  for  it,  and  renounced  all  clear  claim  to  be 
judged  by  any  other.  The  sordid  taint  which  this  r.ecessily  imparted  to 
the  noblest  and  the  highest  sorts  of  service  was  bitterly  resented  by 
generous  souls,  but  there  was  no  evading  it.  There  was  no  exemption, 
hov.'evcr  transcendent  the  quality  of  one's  service,  from  the  necessity  of 
haggling  for  its  price  in  the  market-place.  The  physician  must  sell  his 
healing  and  the  apostle  his  preaching  like  the  rest.  The  prophet,  who 
had  guessed  the  meaning  of  God,  must  dicker  for  the  price  of  the  revela- 
tion, and  the  poet  hawk  his  visions  in  printers'  row.  If  I  were  asked 
to  name  the  most  distinguishing  felicity  of  this  age,  as  compared  to  that 
in  which  I  first  saw  the  light,  I  should  say  that  to  me  it  seems  to  con- 
sist in  the  dignity  you  have  given  to  labor  by  refusing  to  set  a  price 
upon  it  and  abolishing  the  market-place  forever.  By  requiring  of  every 
man  liis  best  you  have  made  God  his  task-master,  and  by  making  honor 
the  sole  reward  of  achievement  you  have  imparted  to  all  scr\'icc  tlie 
distinction  peculiar  in  my  day  to  the  soldier's. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  221 


CHAPTER  XV. 

TT  THEN,  in  the  course  of  our  tour  of  in- 

'  '  spection,  we  came  to  the  Hbrary,  we 
succumbed  to  the  temptation  of  the  luxurious 
leather  chairs  with  which  it  was  furnished,  and 
sat  down  in  one  of  the  book-lined  alcoves  to 
rest  and  chat  awhile.  * 

"  Edith  tells  me  that  you  have  been  in  the 
library  all  the  morning,"  said  Mrs.  Leete. 
"Do  you  know  it  seems  to  me,  Mr.  West, 
that  you  are  the  most  enviable  of  mortals." 

"I  should  like  to  know  just  why,"  I  replied. 

"Because  the  books  of  the  last  hundred 
years  will  be  new  to  you,"  she  answered. 
"You  will  have  so  much  of  the  most  absorbing 

*  I  cannot  sufficiently  celebrate  the  glorious  liberty  that  reigns  in  the 
public  libraries  of  the  twentieth  century  as  compared  with  the  intol- 
erable management  of  those  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  which  the 
books  were  jealously  railed  away  from  the  people,  and  obtainable  only 
at  an  expenditure  of  time  and  red  tape  calculated  to  discourage  any 
ordinary  taste  for  literature. 


222  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

literature  to  read  as  to  leave  you  scarcel}^  time 
for  meals  these  five  years  to  come.  Ah,  what 
would  I  give  if  I  had  not  already  read  Berriaii's 
novels." 

"  Or  Nesmyth's,  mamma,"  added  Edith. 

"Yes,  or  'Oates'  poems,'  or  ^  Past  and  Prei3- 
ent,'  or,  'In  the  Beginning,'  or,  —  oh,  I  could 
name  a  dozen  books,  each  w^orth  a  year  of 
one's  life,"  declared  Mrs.  Leete,  enthusiasti- 
cally. 

"I  judge,  then,  that  there  has  been  some 
notable  literature  produced  in  this  century." 

"Yes,"  said  Dr.  Leete.  ''It  has  been  an  era 
of  unexampled  intellectual  splendor.  Prob- 
ably humanity  never  before  passed  through  a 
moral  and  material  evolution,  at  once  so  vast  in 
its  scope  and  brief  in  its  time  of  accomplish- 
ment, as  that  from  the  old  order  to  the  ncAV  in 
the  early  part  of  this  century.  When  men 
came  to  realize  the  greatness  of  the  felicity 
which  had  befallen  them,  and  that  the  change 
through    which    they    had    passed    was    not 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  223 

merely  an  improvement  in  details  of  their  con- 
dition, but  the  rise  of  the  race  to  a  new  plane 
of  existence  with  an  illimitable  vista  of  progress, 
their  minds  were  affected  in  all  their  faculties 
with  a  stimulus,  of  which  the  outburst  of 
the  mediaeval  renaissance  offers  a  suggestion 
but  faint  indeed.  There  ensued  an  era  of 
mechanical  invention,  scientific  discovery,  art, 
musical  and  literary  productiveness  to  which 
no  previous  age  of  the  world  offers  anything 
comparable." 

"By  the  way,"  said  I,  "talking  of  literature, 
how  are  books  published  now?  Is  that  also 
done  by  the  nation  ?  " 

"Certainly." 

"But  how  do  you  manage  it?  Does  the 
government  publish  everything  that  is  brought 
it  as  a  matter  of  course,  at  the  public  expense, 
or  does  it  exercise  a  censorship  and  print  only 
what  it  approves  ?  " 

"Neither  way.  The  printing  department 
has  no  censorial  powers.     It  is  bound  to  print 


224  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

all  that  IS  offered  it,  but  prints  it  only  on  condi- 
tion that  the  author  defray  the  first  cost  out  of 
his  credit.  He  must  pay  for  the  privilege  of 
the  public  ear,  and  if  he  has  any  message 
worth  hearing  we  consider  that  he  will  be  glad 
to  do  it.  Of  course,  if  incomes  were  unequal, 
as  in  the  old  times,  this  rule  would  enable  only 
the  rich  to  be  authors,  but  the  resources  of  citi- 
zens being  equal,  it  merely  measures  the 
strength  of  the  author's  motive.  The  cost  of 
an  edition  of  an  average  book  can  be  saved  out 
of  a  3'ear's  credit  by  the  practice  of  economy 
and  some  sacrifices.  The  book,  on  being 
published,  is  placed  on  sale  by  the  nation." 

"The  author  receiving  a  royalty  on  the  sales 
as  with  us,  I  suppose?"  I  suggested. 

"  Not  as  with  you,  certainly,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete ;  "but  nevertheless  in  one  way.  The 
price  of  every  book  is  made  up  of  the  cost  of 
its  publication  with  a  royalty  for  the  author. 
The  amount  of  this  ro3'alt3'  is  set  to  his  credit 
and  he  is  discharged  from  other  service  to  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  225 

nation  for  so  long  a  period  as  this  credit  at  the 
rate  of  allowance  for  the  support  of  citizens 
shall  suffice  to  support  him.  If  his  book  be 
moderately  successful,  he  has  thus  a  furlough 
for  several  months,  a  year,  two  or  three  years, 
and  if  he  in  the  meantime  produces  other  suc- 
cessful work,  the  remission  of  service  is 
extended  so  far  as  the  sale  of  that  may  justify. 
An  author  of  much  acceptance  succeeds  in 
supporting  himself  by  his  pen  during  the  entire 
period  of  service,  and  the  degree  of  any  writer's 
literary  ability,  as  determined  by  the  popular 
voice,  is  thus  the  measure  of  the  opportunity 
given  him  to  devote  his  time  to  literature.  In 
this  respect  the  outcome  of  our  sj'Stem  is  not 
very  dissimilar  to  that  of  yours,  but  there  are 
two  notable  differences.  In  the  first  place,  the 
universally  high  level  of  education  nowadays 
gives  the  popular  verdict  a  conclusiveness  on 
the  real  merit  of  literary  work  which  in  your 
day  it  was  as  far  as  possible  from  having.  In 
the  second  place,  there  is  no  such  thing  now 


226  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

as  favoritism  of  any  sort  to  interfere  with  the 
recognition  of  true  merit.  Every  author  has 
precisel}^  the  same  facilhies  for  bringing  his 
work  before  the  popular  tribunal.  To  judge 
from  the  complaints  of  the  writers  of  your 
day,  this  absolute  equality  of  opportunity 
would  have  been  greatly  prized." 

"  In  the  recognition  of  merit  in  other  fields 
of  original  genius,  such  as  music,  art,  inven- 
tion, design"  I  said,  "I  suppose  you  follow  a 
similar  principle." 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "although  the  details 
differ.  In  art,  for  example,  as  in  literature, 
the  people  are  the  sole  judges.  They  vote 
upon  the  acceptance  of  statues  and  paintings 
for  the  public  buildings,  and  their  favorable  ver- 
dict carries  with  it  the  artist's  remission  from 
other  tasks  to  devote  himself  to  his  voca- 
tion. In  all  these  lines  of  orio-inal  genius  the 
plan  pursued  is  the  same,  —  to  offer  a  free 
field  to  aspirants,  and  as  soon  as  exceptional 
talent   is   recognized    to    release    it    from  all 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  227 

trammels  and  let  it  have  free  course.  The 
remission  of  other  service  in  these  cases  is  not 
intended  as  a  gift  or  reward,  but  as  the  means 
of  obtaining  more  and  higher  service.  Of 
course  there  are  various  literary,  art,  and  sci- 
entific institutes  to  which  membership  comes 
to  the  famous  and  is  greatly  prized.  The 
highest  of  all  honors  in  the  nation,  higher  than 
the  presidency,  which  calls  merely  for  good 
sense  and  devotion  to  duty,  is  the  red  ribbon 
awarded  by  the  vote  of  the  people  to  the  great 
authors,  artists,  engineers,  physicians,  and 
inventors  of  the  generation.  Not  over  one 
hundred  wear  it  at  any  one  time,  though  every 
bright  young  fellow  in  the  country  loses  in- 
numerable nights'  sleep  dreaming  of  it.  I  even 
did  myself." 

''Just  as  if  mamma  and  I  would  have  thought 
any  more  of  you  with  it,"  exclaimed  Edith  ; 
"not  that  it  isn't,  of  course,  a  very  fine  thing  to 
have." 

"  You  had  no  choice,  my  dear,  but  to  take 


228  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

your  father  as  you  found  him  and  make  die 
best  of  him,"  Dr.  Leete  replied  ;  "  but  as  for  3'our 
mother,  there,  she  would  never  have  had  me 
if  I  had  not  assured  her  that  I  was  bound  to 
iret  the  ribbon." 

On  this  extravagance  Mrs.  Leete's  only 
comment  was  a  smile. 

"  How  about  periodicals  and  newspapers,"  I 
said.  "  I  v/on't  deny  that  your  book  publish- 
ing system  is  a  considerable  improvement  on 
ours,  both  as  to  its  tendency  to  encourage  a 
real  literary  vocation,  and,  quite  as  important, 
to  discourage  mere  scribblers ;  but  I  don't  see 
how  it  can  be  m^ade  to  apply  to  magazines  and 
newspapers.  It  is  very  well  to  make  a  man 
pay  for  publishing  a  book,  because  the  ex- 
pense will  be  only  occasional ;  but  no  man 
could  afford  the  expense  of  publishing  a  news- 
paper every  day  in  the  year.  It  took  the  deep 
pockets  of  our  private  capitalists  to  do  that, 
and  often  exhausted  even  them  before  the 
returns  came  in.     If  you  have  newspapers  at 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  229 

all,  they  must,  I  Aincy,  be  published  by  the 
government  at  the  public  expense,  with  gov- 
ernment editors,  reflecting  government  opin- 
ions. Now,  if  your  system  is  so  perfect  that 
there  is  never  anvthino^  to  criticize  in  the  con- 
duct  of  affairs,  this  arrangement  may  answer. 
Otherwise  I  should  think  the  lack  of  an  inde- 
pendent unofficial  medium  for  the  expression 
of  public  opinion  would  have  most  unfortunate 
results.  Confess,  Dr.  Leete,  that  a  free  news- 
paper press,  with  all  that  it  implies,  was  a 
redeeming  incident  of  the  old  system  when 
capital  was  in  private  hands,  and  that  you 
have  to  set  off  the  loss  of  that  against  your 
gains  in  other  respects." 

"  I  am  afraid  I  can't  give  you  even  that  con- 
solation," replied  Dr.  Leete,  laughing.  "In 
the  first  place,  Mr.  West,  the  newspaper  press 
is  by  no  means  the  only  or,  as  we  look  at  it, 
the  best  vehicle  for  serious  criticism  of  public 
affairs.  To  us,  the  judgments  of  your  news- 
papers on  such  themes  seem  generally  to  have 


230  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

been  crude  and  flippant,  as  well  as  deeply 
tinctured  with  prejudice  and  bitterness.  In 
so  far  as  they  may  be  taken  as  expressing 
public  opinion,  they  givfe  an  unfavorable  im- 
pression of  the  popular  intelligence,  while  so 
far  as  they  may  have  formed  public  opinion, 
the  nation  was  not  to  be  felicitated.  Nowa- 
days, when  a  citizen  desires  to  make  a  serious 
impression  upon  the  public  mind  as  to  an}'- 
aspect  of  public  affairs,  he  comes  out  with  a 
book  or  pamphlet,  published  as  other  books 
are.  But  this  is  not  because  w^e  lack  newspa- 
pers and  magazines,  or  that  they  lack  the 
m.ost  absolute  freedom.  The  newspaper  press 
is  organized  so  as  to  be  a  more  perfect  ex- 
pression of  pubHc  opinion  than  it  possibly 
could  be  in  your  day,  when  private  capital 
controlled  and  managed  it  primarily  as  a 
money-making  business,  and  secondarily  only 
as  a  mouthpiece  for  the  people." 

"But,"  said  I,  ''if  the  government  prints  the 
papers  at  the  public  expense,  how  can  it  fail  to 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  231 

control  their  policy?  Who  appoints  the  editors 
if  not  the  government?" 

"  The  government  does  not  pay  the  expense 
of  the  papers,  nor  appoint  their  editors,  nor  in 
any  way  exert  the  slightest  influence  on  their 
policy,"  replied  Dr.  Leete. 

"The  people  who  take  the  paper  pay  the 
expense  of  its  publication,  choose  its  editor, 
and  remove  him  when  unsatisfactory.  You 
will  scarcely  say,  I  think,  that  such  a  news- 
paper press  is  not  a  free  organ  of  popular 
opinion.  " 

"Decidedly,  I  shall  not,"  I  replied,  "but 
how  is  it  practicable  ?  " 

"Nothing  could  be  simpler.  Supposing 
some  of  my  neighbors  or  myself  think  we 
ought  to  have  a  newspaper  reflecting  our  opin- 
ions, and  devoted  especially  to  our  locality, 
trade,  or  profession.  We  go  about  among  the 
people  till  we  get  the  names  of  such  a  number 
that  their  annual  subscriptions  will  meet  the 
cost  of  the  paper,  which  is  little  or  big  accord- 


232  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

ing  to  the  largeness  of  its  constituency.  The 
amount  of  the  subscriptions  marked  off  the 
credits  of  the  citizens  guarantees  the  nation 
against  loss  in  publishing  the  paper,  its  busi- 
ness, you  understand,  being  that  of  a  publisher 
purely,  with  no  option  to  refuse  the  duty  re- 
quired. The  subscribers  to  the  paper  now  elect 
somebody  as  editor  w-ho,  if  he  accepts  the  office, 
is  discharged  from  other  service  during  his  in- 
cumbency. Instead  of  paying  a  salary  to  him, 
as  in  your  day,  the  subscribers  pay  the  nation 
an  indemnity  equal  to  the  cost  of  his  support  for 
taking  him  away  from  the  general  service. 
He  manages  the  paper  just  as  one  of  your  edi- 
tors did,  except  that  he  has  no  counting-room 
to  obey,  or  interests  of  private  capital  as 
against  the  public  good  to  defend.  At  the 
end  of  the  first  year,  the  subscribers  for  the 
next  either  re-elect  the  former  editor  or  choose 
an}^  one  else  to  his  place.  An  able  editor,  of 
course,  keeps  his  place  indefinitely.  As  the 
subscription  list  enlarges,  the  funds  of  the  paper 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  233 

increase,  and  it  is  improved  by  the  securing  of 
more  and  better  contributors,  just  as  your 
papers  were." 

"  How  is  the  staff  of  contributors  recom- 
pensed, since  they  cannot  be  paid  in  money." 

"The  editor  settles  with  them  the  price  of  their 
wares.  The  amount  is  transferred  to  their 
individual  credit  from  the  guarantee  credit 
of  the  paper,  and  a  remission  of  service  is 
granted  the  contributor  for  a  length  of  time 
corresponding  to  the  amount  credited  him, 
just  as  to  other  authors.  As  to  magazines,  the 
system  is  the  same.  Those  interested  in  the 
prospectus  of  a  new  periodical  pledge  enough 
subscriptions  to  run  it  for  a  year;  select 
their  editor,  who  recompenses  his  contribu- 
tors just  as  in  the  other  case,  the  printing 
bureau  furnishing  the  necessary  force  and 
material  for  publication,  as  a  matter  of  course. 
When  an  editor's  services  are  iio  longer  de- 
sired, if  he  cannot  earn  the  right  to  his  time 
by  other  literary  work,  he  simply  resumes  his 


234  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

place  in  the  industrial  army.  I  should  add 
that,  though  ordinarily  the  editor  is  elected 
only  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and  as  a  rule  is 
continued  in  office  for  a  term  of  years,  in  case 
of  any  sudden  change  he  should  give  to  the 
tone  of  the  paper,  provision  is  made  for  tak- 
ing the  sense  of  the  subscribers  as  to  his  re- 
moval at  any  time." 

When  the  ladies  retired  that  evening,  Edith 
brought  me  a  book  and  said  : 

''  If  you  should  be  wakeful  to-night,  Mr. 
West,  you  might  be  interested  in  looking  over 
this  story  by  Berrian.  It  is  considered  his 
masterpiece,  and  will  at  least  give  3'ou  an  idea 
what  the  stories  nowadays  are  like." 

I  sat  up  in  my  room  that  night  reading 
'*  Penthesilia  "  till  it  grew  gray  in  the  east,  and 
did  not  lay  it  down  till  I  had  finished  it.  And 
yet  let  no  admirer  of  the  great  romancer  of  the 
twentieth  century  resent  m}-  saying  that  at  the 
first  reading  what  most  impressed  me  was  not 
so  much  what  was  in  the  book   as  what  was 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  235 

left  out  of  it.  The  story-writers  of  my  day 
would  have  deemed  the  making  of  bricks  with- 
out straw  a  light  task  compared  with  the  con- 
struction of  a  romance  from  which  should 
be  excluded  all  effects  drawn  from  the  con- 
trasts of  wealth  and  poverty,  education  and 
ignorance,  coarseness  and  refinement,  high 
and  low,  all  motives  drawn  from  social  pride 
and  ambidon,  the  desire  of  being  richer  or 
the  fear  of  being  poorer,  together  wdth  sordid 
anxieties  of  any  sort  for  one's  self  or  others ;  a 
romance  in  which  there  should,  indeed,  be  love 
galore,  but  love  unfretted  by  artificial  bar- 
riers created  by  differences  of  station  or  pos- 
sessions, owning  no  other  law  but  that  of  the 
heart.  The  reading  of  "  Penthesiha  "  w^as  of 
more  value  than  almost  any  amount  of  explan- 
ation would  have  been  in  giving  me  something 
like  a  general  impression  of  the  social  aspect 
of  the  twentieth  century.  The  information 
Dr.  Leete  had  imparted  was  indeed  extensive 


236  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

as  to  facts,  but  they  had  affected  my  mind  as 
so  many  separate  impressions,  which  I  had' 
as  yet  succeeded  but  imperfectly  in  making 
cohere.  Berrian  put  them  together  for  me  in 
a  picture. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  237 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

NEXT  morning  I  rose  somewhat  before 
the  breakfast  hour.  As  I  descended 
the  stairs,  Edith  stepped  into  the  hall  from 
the  room  which  had  been  the  scene  of  the 
morning  interview  between  us  described  some 
chapters  back. 

"  Ah  !  "  she  exclaimed,  with  a  charmingly 
arch  expression,  "you  thought  to  slip  out  un- 
beknown for  another  of  those  solitary  morning 
rambles  which  have  such  nice  effects  on  you. 
But  you  see  I  am  up  too  early  for  you  this 
Lime.     You  are  fairly  caught.'* 

"You  discredit  the  efficacy  of  your  own 
cure,"  I  said,  "  by  supposing  that  such  a 
ranible  would  now  be  attended  with  bad  con- 
sequences." 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  hear  that,"  she  said.  "  I 
was  in  here   arranixinof    some    flowers  for  the 


238  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

breakfast  table  when  I  heard  you  come  clown, 
and  fancied  I  detected  something  surreptitious 
in  your  step  on  the  stairs." 

"You  did  me  injustice,"  I  replied.  "I  had 
no  idea  of  going  out  at  all." 

Despite  her  effort  to  convey  an  impression 
that  my  interception  was  purely  accidental,  I 
had  at  the  time  a  dim  suspicion  of  what  I  after- 
wards learned  to  be  the  fact,  namely,  that  this 
sweet  creature,  in  pursuance  of  her  self- 
assumed  guardianship  over  me,  had  risen  for 
the  last  two  or  three  mornings,  at  an  unheard 
of  hour,  to  insure  against  the  possibility  of  my 
wandering  off  alone  in  case  I  should  be 
affected  as  on  the  former  occasion.  Receiv- 
ing permission  to  assist  her  in  making  up  tht^ 
breakfast  bouquet,  I  followed  her  into  the 
room  from  which  she  had  emerged. 

"Are  you  sure,"  she  asked,  "that  you  are 
quite  done  with  those  terrible  sensations  you 
had  that  morning  ?  " 

"  I  can't  say  that  I  do  not  have  times  of  feel- 


LOOKING  BACkWAnD,  239 

ing  decidedly  queer;"  I  replied,  "moments 
when  my  personal  identity  seems  an  open 
question.  It  would  be  too  much  to  expect  after 
my  experience  that  I  should  not  have  such 
sensations  occasionally,  but  as  for  being  car- 
ried entirely  off  my  feet,  as  I  was  on  the  point 
of  being  that  morning,  I  think  the  danger  is 
past." 

"I  shall  never  forget  how  you  looked  that 
morning,"  she  said. 

"If  you  had  merely  saved  m}^  life,"  I  con- 
tinued, "I  might,  perhaps,  find  words  to 
express  my  gratitude,  but  it  was  my  reason 
you  saved,  and  there  are  no  words  that  would 
not  belittle  my  debt  to  you."  I  spoke  with 
emotion,  and  her  eyes  grew  suddenly  moist. 

"It  is  too  much  to  believe  all  this,"  she  said, 
"but  it  is  very  delightful  to  hear  you  say  it. 
What  I  did  was  very  little.  I  was  very 
much  distressed  for  you,  I  know.  Father 
never  thinks  anything  ought  to  astonish  us 
when  it  can  be  explained  scientifically,  as  I 


240  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

suppose  this  long  sleep  of  yours  can  be,  but 
even  to  fancy  myself  in  your  place  makes  my 
head  swim.  I  know  that  I  could  not  have 
borne  it  at  all." 

"  That  would  depend,"  I  replied,  "  on  whether 
an  angel  came  to  support  you  with  her  sympa- 
thy in  the  crisis  of  your  condition,  as  one 
came  to  me."  If  my  face  at  all  expressed  the 
feelinjxs  I  had  a  risflit  to  have  toward  this 
swTet  and  lovely  young  girl,  w^ho  had  plaj'ed 
so  angelic  a  role  toward  me,  its  expression  must 
have  been  very  worshipful  just  then.  The 
expression  or  the  words,  or  both  together, 
caused  her  now  to  drop  her  eyes  with  a 
charming  blush. 

"For  the  matter  of  that,"  I  said,  "if  your 
experience  has  not  been  as  startling  as  mine, 
it  m.ust  have  been  rather  overwhelming  to  see 
a  man  belonging  to  a  strange  century,  and 
apparently  a  hundred  years  dead,  raised  to 
life." 

"  It  seemed  indeed  strange  beyond  any  de- 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  24I 

scribing  at  first,"  she  said,  "but  when  we 
began  to  put  ourselves  in  your  place,  and 
realize  how  much  stranger  it  must  seem  to 
you,  I  fancy  we  forgot  our  own  feelings  a 
<;Ood  deal,  at  least  I  know  I  did.  It  seemed 
;hen  not  so  much  astounding  as  interesting 
and  touching  beyond  anything  ever  heard  of 
before.'' 

"  But  does  it  not  come  over  you  as  astound- 
ing to  sit  at  table  with  me,  seeing  who  I  am?' 

"You  must  remember  that  ycu  do  not  seem 
so  strange  to  us  as  we  must  to  you,"  she 
answered.  "We  belonij  to  a  future  of  which 
you  could  not  form  an  idea,  a  generation  of 
which  you  knew  nothing  until  you  saw  us. 
But  you  belong  to  a  generation  of  which  our 
forefathers  were  a  part.  We  know-  all  about 
it ;  the  names  of  many  of  its  members  are 
hiOusehold  words  with  us.  We  have  made  a 
study  of  your  ways  of  living  and  thinking ; 
nothing  3-0U  say  or  do  surprises  us,  wliile 
we  say  and  do  nothing  which  does  not  seem 


242  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

Strange  to  you.  So  you  see,  Mr.  West,  that 
if  you  feel  that  you  can,  in  time,  get  accus- 
tomed to  us,  you  must  not  be  surprised  that 
from  the  first  we  liave  scarcely  found  you 
strange  at  all." 

"I  had  not  thought  of  it  in  that  way,"  I 
replied.  "  There  is  indeed  much  in  w^hat  you 
say.  One  can  look  back  a  thousand  years 
easier  than  forward  fifty.  A  centur}^  is  not  so 
very  long  a  retrospect.  I  might  have  known 
your  great  grand-parents.  Possibly  I  did. 
Did  they  live  in  Boston  ?  " 

"I  believe  so." 

"You  are  not  sure,  then?" 

"Yes,"  she  replied.  "Now  I  think,  they 
did." 

"I  had  a  very  large  circle  of  acquaintances 
in  the  cit}^"  I  said.  "  It  is  not  unlikely  tliat  I 
knew  or  knew  of  some  of  them.  Perhaps  I  may 
have  known  them  well.  Wouldn't  it  be  inter- 
esting if  I  should  chance  to  be  able  to  tell 
you  all  about  your  great  grand-father,  for 
instance?" 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  243 

"Very  interesting." 

'^  Do  you  know  your  genealogy  well  enough 
to  tell  me  who  your  forbears  were  in  the  Bos- 
ton of  my  day." 

"Oh,  yes." 

"Perhaps,  then,  you  will  sometime  tell  me 
what  some  of  their  names  were." 

She  was  engrossed  in  arranging  a  trouble- 
some spray  of  green  and  did  not  reply  at  once. 
Steps  upon  the  stairway  indicated  that  the 
other  members  of  the  family  were  descending. 

''Perhaps,  sometime,"  she  said. 

After  breakfast.  Dr.  Leete  suggested  taking 
me  to  inspect  the  central  warehouse  and  ob- 
serve actually  in  operation  the  machinery  ot 
distribution,  which  Edith  had  described  to  me. 
As  we  walked  away  from  the  house  I  said, 
"  It  is  now  several  days  that  I  have  been  liv- 
ing in  your  household  on  a  most  extraordinary 
footing,  or  rather  on  none  at  all.  I  have  not 
spoken  of  this  aspect  of  my  position  before 
because  there  were  so  many  other  aspects  yet 


244  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

more  extraordinary.  But  now  that  I  am 
beginning  a  little  to  feel  my  feet  under  me, 
and  to  realize  that,  hov^'ever  I  came  here,  I 
am  here,  and  must  make  the  best  of  it,  I 
must  speak  to  you  on  this  point." 

''As  for  your  being  a  guest  in  my  house," 
replied  Dr.  Leete,  "I  pray  3'ou  not  to  begin  to 
be  uneasy  on  that  point,  for  I  mean  to  keep  you 
a  long  time  yet.  With  all  your  modest}',  you 
can  but  realize  that  such  a  guest  as  your- 
self is  an  acquisition  not  willingly  to  be 
parted  with." 

"Thanks,  doctor,"  I  said.  "It  would  be 
absurd,  certainly,  for  me  to  affect  any  over- 
sensitiveness  about  accepting  the  temporary 
hospitality  of  one  to  whom  I  owe  it  that  I  am 
not  still  awaiting  the  end  of  the  world  in  a 
living  tomb.  But  if  I  am  to  be  a  permanent 
citizen  of  this  century  I  must  have  some  stand- 
ing in  it.  Now,  in  my  time  a  person  more  or 
less  entering  the  world,  however  he  got  in, 
would    not     be    noticed    in     the    unorganized 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  245 

throng  of  men,  and  might  make  a  place  for 
himself  anywhere  he  chose  if  he  were  strong 
enough.  But  nowacla3's  everybody  is  a  part 
of  a  system  with  a  distinct  place  and  func- 
tion. I  am  outside  the  system,  and  don't 
see  how  I  can  get  in ;  there  seems  no  way 
to  get  in,  except  to  be  born  in  or  to  come  in 
as  an  emigrant  from  some  other  system." 

Dr.  Leete  laughed  heartily. 

"I  admit,"  he  said,  ''that  our  system  is  de- 
fective in  lacking  provision  for  cases  like 
yours,  but  3'ou  see  nobody  anticipated  addi- 
tions to  the  world  except  by  the  usual  process. 
You  need,  however,  have  no  fear  that  we  shall 
be  unable  to  provide  both  a  place  and  occu- 
pation for  you  in  due  time.  You  have  as  yet 
been  brought  in  contact  only  with  the  members 
of  my  family,  but  you  must  not  suppose  that  I 
have  kept  you  a  secret.  On  the  contrary, 
your  case,  even  before  your  resuscitation,  and 
vastly  more  since,  has  excited  the  profoundest 
interest  in  the  nation.     In  view  of  your  preca- 


246  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

rious  nervous  condition,  it  was  thought  best 
that  I  should  take  exclusive  charge  of  you  at 
first,  and  that  you  should,  thorough  me  and  my 
family,  receive  some  general  idea  of  the  sort 
of  world  you  had  come  back  to  before  you 
began  to  make  the  acquaintance  generall}'  of 
its  inhabitants.  As  to  finding  a  function  for 
you  in  society,  there  was  no  hesitation  as  to 
what  that  would  be.  Few  of  us  have  it  in  our 
power  to  confer  so  great  a  service  on  the  nation 
as  you  \\\\\  be  able  to  when  you  leave  my 
roof,  which,  however,  you  must  not  think  of 
doing  for  a  good  time  yet." 

"What  can  I  possibly  do?  "  I  asked.  "Per- 
haps you  imagine  I  have  some  trade  or  art  or 
special  skill.  I  assure  you  I  have  none  what- 
ever. I  never  earned  a  dollar  in  my  life  or 
did  an  hour's  work.  I  am  strong,  and  might 
be  a  common  laborer,  but  nothing  more." 

^'If  that  were  the  most  efficient  service  3'ou 
were  able  to  render  the  nation,  3'ou  w'ould  find 
that  avocation  considered  quite  as  respectable 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  247 

as  any  other/'  replied  Dr.  Leete  ;  "  but  you  can 
do  something  else  better.  You  are  easily  the 
master  of  all  our  historians  on  questions  relat- 
ing to  the  social  condition  of  the  latter  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  to  us  one  of  the  most 
absorbingly  interesting  periods  of  history  ;  and 
whenever  in  due  time  you  have  sufficiently 
familiarized  yourself  with  our  institutions,  and 
ani  willing  to  teach  us  something  concerning 
those  of  your  day,  you  will  find  an  historical 
lectureship  in  one  of  our  colleges  awaiting 
you." 

"Very  good!  very  good,  indeed,"  I  said, 
much  relieved  by  so  practical  a  suggestion  on 
a  ^oint  which  had  begun  to  trouble  me. 
"  If  your  people  are  really  so  much  interested 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  there  will  indeed  be 
an  occupation  ready  made  for  me.  I  don't 
think  there  is  anything  else  that  I  could  possi- 
bly earn  my  salt  at,  but  I  certainly  may  claim 
without  conceit  to  have  some  special  qualifica- 
tions for  such  a  post  as  you  describe." 


248  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

T  FOUND  the  processes  at  the  warehouse 
•^  quite  as  inieresting  as  Edith  had  described 
them,  and  became  even  enthusiastic  over  the 
truly  remarkable  illustration  which  is  seen 
there  of  the  prodigiously  multiplied  efficiency 
which  perfect  organization  can  give  to  labor. 
It  is  like  a  gigantic  mill,  into  the  hopper  of 
which  goods  are  being  constantly  poured  by 
the  train-load  and  ship-load,  to  issue  at  the 
other  end  in  packages  of  pounds  and  ounces, 
yards  and  inches,  pints  and  gallons,  corre- 
sponding to  the  infinitely  complex  personal 
needs  of  half  a  million  people.  Dr.  Leete, 
with  the  assistance  of  data  furnished  by  me  as 
to  the  way  goods  were  sold  in  my  day,  figured 
out  some  astounding  results  in  the  way  of  tlie 
economies  effected  by  the  modern  system. 
As  we  set  out  homeward,  I   said:     "After 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  249 

what  I  have  seen  to-day,  together  with  what 
you  have  told  me,  and  what  I  learned  under 
Miss  Leete's  tutelage  at  the  sample  store,  I 
have  a  tolerably  clear  idea  of  your  system 
of  distribution,  and  how  it  enables  you  to 
dispense  with  a  circulating  medium.  But  I 
should  like  very  much  to  know  something 
more  about  your  sj^stem  of  production.  You 
have  told  me  in  general  how  3'our  industrial 
army  is  levied  and  organized,  but  who  directs 
its  efforts?  What  supreme  authorit}'  deter- 
mines what  shall  be  done  in  every  department 
so  that  enough  of  everything  is  produced  and 
yet  no  labor  wasted?  It  seems  to  me  that  this 
must  be  a  wonderfully  complex  and  difficult 
function,  requiring  ver}^  unusual  endowments." 
"Does  it  indeed  seem  so  to  you?  "  responded 
Dr.  Leete.  "I  assure  you  that  it  is  nothing  of 
the  kind,  but  on  the  other  hand  so  simple,  and 
depending  on  principles  so  obvious  and  easily 
applied,  that  the  functionaries  at  Washington 
to  whom   it   is   trusted  require  to  be  nothing 


250  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

more  than  men  of  fair  abilities  to  discharge  it 
to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  the  nation.  The 
machine  which  they  direct  is  indeed  a  vast 
one,  but  so  logical  in  its  principles  and  direct 
and  simple  in  its  workings,  that  it  all  but  runs 
itself,  and  nobody  but  a  fool  could  derange  it, 
as  I  think  you  will  agree  after  a  few  words  of 
explanation.  Since  you  already  have  a  pretty 
good  idea  of  the  working  of  the  distributive 
system,  let  us  begin  at  that  end.  Even  in 
your  day  statisticians  were  able  to  tell  you  the 
number  of  yards  of  cotton,  velvet,  woollen,  the 
number  of  barrels  of  flour,  potatoes,  butter, 
number  of  pairs  of  shoes,  hats,  and  umbrellas 
annually  consumed  by  the  nation.  Owing  to 
the  fact  that  production  was  in  private  hands, 
and  that  there  was  no  way  of  getting  statistics 
of  actual  distribution,  these  figures  were  not 
exact,  but  they  were  nearly  so.  Now  that 
every  pin  which  is  given  out  from  a  national 
warehouse  is  recorded,  of  course  the  figures 
of  consumption  for  any  week,  month,  or  year, 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  25 1 

in  the  possession  of  the  department  of  distribu- 
tion at  the  end  of  that  period,  are  precise.  On 
these  figures,  allowing  for  tendencies  to  in- 
crease or  decrease  and  for  any  special  causes 
likely  to  affect  demand,  the  estimates,  say  for 
a  year  ahead,  are  based.  These  estimates, 
with  a  proper  margin  for  security,  having 
been  accepted  by  the  general  administration, 
the  responsibility  of  the  distributive  depart- 
ment ceases  until  the  goods  are  delivered  to  it. 
I  speak  of  the  estimates  being  furnished  for  an 
entire  year  ahead,  but  in  reality  they  cover 
that  much  time  only  in  case  of  the  great  sta- 
ples for  w^hich  the  demand  can  be  calculated 
on  as  steady.  In  the  great  majority  of  smaller 
Industries,  for  the  products  of  which  popular 
taste  fluctuates  and  novelty  is  frequently  re- 
quired, production  is  kept  barely  ahead  of  con- 
sumption, the  distributive  department  furnish- 
ing frequent  estimates  based  on  the  weekly 
state  of  demand. 

"  Now  the  entire  field  of  productive  and  con- 


252  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

structive  industiy  is  divided  into  ten  great 
departments,  each  representing  a  group  of 
allied  industries,  each  particidar  industry 
being  in  turn  represented  by  a  subordinate 
bureau,  which  has  a  complete  record  of  the 
plant  and  force  under  its  control,  of  the 
present  product,  and  means  of  increasing  it. 
The  estimates  of  the  distributive  department, 
after  adoption  by  the  administration,  are  sent 
as  mandates  to  the  ten  great  departments, 
which  allot  them  to  the  subordinate  bureaus 
representing  the  particular  industries,  and 
these  set  the  men  at  Vv^ork.  Each  bureau  is 
responsible  for  the  task  given  it,  and  this 
responsibility  is  enforced  by  departmental 
oversight  and  that  of  the  administration,  nor 
does  the  distributive  department  accept  the 
product  without  its  own  inspection  ;  wdiile  even 
if  in  the  hands  of  the  consumer  an  article  turns 
out  unfit,  the  system  enables  the  fault  to  be 
traced  back  to  the  original  w^orkman.  The 
production  of  the  commodities  for  actual  pub- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  253 

lie  consumption  does  not,  of  course,  require 
by  an}'  means  all  the  national  force  of  work- 
ers. After  the  necessary  contingents  have  been 
detailed  for  the  various  industries,  the  amount 
of  labor  left  for  other  employment  is  expended 
in  creating  fixed  capital,  such  as  buildings, 
machinery,  engineering  works,  and  so  forth." 

"One  point  occurs  to  me,"  I  said,  "on  which 
I  should  think  there  might  be  dissatisfaction. 
Where  there  is  no  opportunit}'  for  private 
enterprise,  how  is  there  any  assurance  that 
the  claims  of  small  minorities  of  the  people 
to  have  articles  produced,  for  which  there 
is  no  wide  demand,  will  be  respected?  An 
official  decree  at  any  moment  may  deprive 
them  of  the  means  of  gratifying  some  special 
taste,  merely  because  the  majority  does  not 
share  it." 

"That  would  be  tyranny  indeed,"  replied 
Dr.  Leete,  "and  3'ou  may  be  very  sure  that  it 
does  not  happen  with  us,  to  whom  libert}'  is  as 
dear  as  equality  or  fraternity.     As  you  come 


254  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

to  know  our  system  better,  you  will  see  that 
our  officials  are  in  fact,  and  not  merely  in 
name,  the  agents  and  servants  of  the  people. 
The  administration  has  no  power  to  stop  tlie 
production  of  any  commodity  for  which  there 
continues  to  be  a  demand.  Suppose  the 
demand  for  any  article  declines  to  such  a 
point  that  its  production  becomes  very  costly. 
The  price  has  to  be  raised  in  proportion,  of 
course,  but  as  long  as  the  consumer  cares  to 
pay  it,  the  production  goes  on.  Again,  sup- 
pose an  article  not  before  produced  is  de- 
manded. If  the  administration  doubts  the 
reality  of  the  demand,  a  popular  petition  guar- 
anteeing a  certain  basis  of  consumption  com- 
pels it  to  produce  the  desired  article.  A 
government,  or  a  majority,  which  should  un- 
dertake to  tell  the  people,  or  a  minority,  what 
they  were  to  eat,  drink,  or  wear,  as  I  believe 
governments  in  America  did  in  your  day, 
would  be  regarded  as  a  curious  anachronism 
indeed.     Possibly,  you  had  reasons  for  tolerat- 


LOOKING   BACKWARD,  255 

ing  these  infringements  of  personal  independ- 
ence, but  we  should  not  think  them  endur- 
able. I  am  glad  you  raised  this  point,  for  it 
has  given  me  a  chance  to  show  you  how  much 
more  direct  and  efficient  is  the  control  over 
production  exercised  by  the  individual  citizen 
now  than  it  was  in  your  day,  when  what  you 
called  private  inidative  prevailed,  though  it 
should  have  been  called  capitalist  initiative, 
for  the  average  private  citizen  had  little  enough 
share  in  it." 

"  You  speak  of  raising  the  price  of  costly 
articles,"  I  said.  "  How  can  prices  be  regu- 
lated in  a  country  where  there  is  no  competi- 
tion between  buyers  or  sellers?" 

"Just  as  they  were  with  you,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete.  "You  think  that  needs  explaining," 
he  added,  as  I  looked  incredulous,  "but  the 
explanation  need  not  be  long  ;  the  cost  of  the 
labor  which  produced  it  was  recognized  as  the 
legitimate  basis  of  the  price  of  an  article  in 
your  day,  and  so  it  is  in  ours.     In  your  day,  it 


256  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

was  the  difference  in  wages  that  made  the  dif- 
ference in  the  cost  of  labor,  now  it  is  the  rela- 
tive number  of  hours  constituting  a  day's  work 
in  different  trades,  the  maintenance  of  the 
worker  being  equal  in  all  cases.  The  cost 
of  a  man's  work  in  a  trade  so  difficult  that  in 
order  to  attract  volunteers  the  hours  have  to  be 
fixed  at  four  a  day,  is  twice  as  great  as  that  in 
a  trade  where  the  men  work  ei":ht  hours. 
The  result  as  to  the  cost  of  labor,  you  see,  is 
just  the  same  as  if  the  man  working  four 
b.ours  were  paid,  under  your  system,  twice 
the  wages  the  other  gets.  This  calculation 
applied  to  the  labor  emplojxd  in  the  various 
processes  of  a  manufactured  article  gives  its 
price  relativel}'  to  other  articles.  Besides  the 
cost  of  production  and  transportation,  the  fac- 
tor of  scarcity  affects  the  prices  of  some  com- 
modities. As  regards  the  great  staples  of  life, 
of  which  an  abundance  can  always  be  secured, 
scarcity  is  eliminated  as  a  factor.  There  is 
always    a  large   surplus   kept   on  hand   frora 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  257 

which  any  fluctuations  of  demand  or  supply 
can  be  corrected,  even  in  most  cases  of  bad 
crops.  The  prices  of  the  staples  grow  less 
year  by  year,  but  rarely,  if  ever,  rise.  There 
are,  however,  certain  classes  of  articles  per- 
manently, and  others  temporarily,  unequal  to 
the  demand,  as,  for  example,  fresh  fish  or 
dairy  products  in  the  latter  categoiy?  and  the 
products  of  high  skill  and  rare  materials  in  the 
other.  All  that  can  be  done  here  is  to  equal- 
ize the  inconvenience  of  the  scarcity.  This  is 
done  by  temporarily  raising  the  price  if  the 
scarcity  be  temporar}^  or  fixing  it  high  if  it  be 
permanent.  High  prices  in  your  day  meant 
restriction  of  the  articles  aff'ected  to  the 
rich,  but  nowadays,  when  the  means  of  all  are 
the  same,  the  effect  is  only  that  those  to  whom 
the  ardcles  seem  most  desirable  are  the  ones 
who  purchase  them.  I  have  given  you  now 
some  general  notion  of  our  system  of  produc- 
tion, as  well  as  distribution.  Do  you  find  it 
as  complex  as  you  expected?" 


258  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

I  admitted  that  nothing  could  be  much 
simpler. 

"I  am  sure,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  "that  it  is 
within  the  truth  to  say  that  the  head  of  one  of 
the  myriad  private  businesses  of  your  day, 
who  had  to  maintain  sleepless  vigilance  against 
the  fluctuations  of  the  market,  the  machina- 
tion., of  his  rivals,  and  the  failure  of  his  debt- 
ors, had  a  far  more  trying  task  than  the  group 
of  men  at  Washington  who,  nowadays,  direct 
the  industries  of  the  entire  nation.  All  this 
merel}^  shows,  my  dear  fellow,  how  much 
easier  it  is  to  do  things  the  right  way  than 
the  wrong.  It  is  easier  for  a  general  up  in  a 
balloon,  with  perfect  survey  of  the  field,  to 
manoeuvre  a  million  men  to  victory  than  for  a 
sergeant  to  manage  a  platoon  in  a  thicket." 

"The  general  of  this  army,  including  the 
flower  of  the  manhood  of  the  nation,  must  be 
the  foremost  man  in  the  country,  really  greater 
even  than  the  president  of  the  United  States," 
I  said. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  259 

"  He  is  the  president  of  the  United  States," 
replied  Dr.  Leete  ;  "  or  rather  the  most  import- 
ant function  of  the  presidency  is  the  headship 
of  the  industrial  army." 

"  How  is  he  chosen?"  I  asked. 

"I  explained  to  you  before,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete,  '*  when  I  was  describing  the  force  of 
the  motive  of  emulation  among  all  grades  of 
the  industrial  arm}-,  that  the  line  of  promotion 
for  the  meritorious  lies  through  three  grades 
to  the  officer's  grade,  and  thence  up  through 
the  lieutenancies  to  the  captaincy,  or  foreman- 
ship,  and  superintendency  or  colonel's  rank. 
Next,  with  an  intervening  grade  in  some 
of  the  larger  trades,  comes  the  general  of 
the  guild,  under  whose  immediate  control  all 
the  operations  of  the  trade  are  conducted. 
This  officer  is  at  the  head  of  the  national  bu- 
reau representing  his  trade,  and  is  responsible 
for  its  work  to  the  administration.  The  gen- 
eral of  his  guild  holds  a  splendid  position,  and 
one  which  amply  satisfies  the  ambition  of  most 


26o  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

men,  but  above  bis  rank,  whicb  may  be  com- 
pared, to  follow  the  military  analogies  familiar 
to  you,  to  that  of  a  general  of  division  or 
major-general,  is  that  of  the  chiefs  of  the  ten 
great  departments  or  groups  of  allied  trades. 
The  chiefs  of  these  ten  grand  divisions  of  the 
industrial  army  may  be  compared  to  your 
commanders  of  army  corps,  or  lieutenant-gen- 
erals, each  having  from  a  dozen  to  a  score  of 
generals  of  separate  guilds  reporting  to  him. 
Above  these  ten  great  officers,  v>-ho  form  his 
council,  is  the  general-in-chief,  who  is  the 
president  of  the  United  States. 

"  The  general~in-chief  of  the  industrial  army 
must  have  passed  through  all  the  grades  below 
him,  from  the  common  laborers  up.  Let 
us  see  how  he  rises.  As  I  have  told  you,  it  is 
simply  by  the  excellence  of  his  record  as 
a  worker  that  one  rises  through  the  grades 
of  the  privates  and  becomes  a  candidate  for  a 
lieutenancy.  Through  the  lieutenancies,  he 
rises  to  the  colonelcy  or  superintendent's  posi- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  261 

tion,  by  appointment  from  above,  strictly  lim- 
ited to  the  candidates  of  the  best  records. 
The  general  of  the  guild  appoints  to  the 
ranks  under  him,  but  he  himself  is  not  ap- 
pointed, but  chosen  by  suffrage." 

" By  suffrage  ! "  I  exclaimed.  "Is  not  that 
ruinous  to  the  discipline  of  the  guild,  by  tempt- 
ing the  candidates  to  intrigue  for  the  support  of 
the  workers  under  them?" 

"  So  it  would  be,  no  doubt,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete,  "if  the  workers  had  any  suffrage  to 
exercise,  or  anything  to  say  about  the  choice. 
But  they  have  nothing.  Just  here  comes  in  a 
peculiarity  of  our  system.  The  general  of  the 
guild  is  chosen  from  among  the  superintend- 
ents by  vote  of  the  honorary  members  of  the 
guild,  that  is,  of  those  who  have  served  their 
time  in  the  guild  and  received  their  discharge. 
As  you  know,  at  the  age  of  forty-five  we  are 
mustered  out  of  the  arm}^  of  industry,  and 
have  the  residue  of  life  for  tlie  pursuit  of  our 
own  improvement  or  recreation.     Of  course, 


262  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

however,  the  associations  of  our  active  life- 
time retain  a  powerful  hold  on  us.  The  com- 
panionships we  formed  then  remain  our  com- 
panionships till  the  end  cf  life.  We  always 
continue  honorary  members  of  our  former 
guilds,  -and  retain  the  keenest  and  most  jealous 
interest  in  their  weliare  and  repute  in  the 
hands  of  the  following  generation.  In  the 
clubs  maintained  by  the  honorary  members 
of  the  several  guilds,  in  which  we  meet  socially, 
there  are  no  topics  of  conversation  so  common 
as  those  which  relate  to  these  matters,  and  the 
young  aspirants  for  guild  leadership  who  can 
pass  the  criticism  of  us  old  fellows  are  likely 
to  be  pretty  well  equipped.  Recognizing  this 
fact,  the  nation  entrusts  to  the  honorary  mem- 
bers of  each  guild  the  election  of  its  general, 
and  I  venture  to  claim  that  no  previous  form 
of  society  could  have  developed  a  body  of 
electors,  so  ideally  adapted  to  their  office,  as 
regards  absolute  impartiality,  knowledge  of 
the  special  qualifications  and  record  of  candi- 


L  OOKING  BA  CKWARD.  263 

dates,  solicitude  for  the  best  result,  and  com- 
plete absence  of  self-interest. 

"Each  of  the  ten  lieutenant-generals  or  heads 
of  departments,  is  himself  elected  from  among 
the  generals  of  the  guilds  grouped  as  a  depart- 
ment, by  vote  of  the  honorary  members  of  the 
guilds  thus  grouped.  Of  course  there  is  a 
tendenc}'  on  the  part  of  each  guild  to  vote  for 
its  own  general,  but  no  guild  of  any  group 
has  nearly  enough  votes  to  elect  a  man  not 
supported  b}^  most  of  the  others.  I  assure 
you  that  these  elections  are  exceedingly 
lively." 

"The  president,  I  suppose,  is  selected  from 
among  the  ten  heads  of  the  great  departments," 
I  suggested. 

"Precisely,  but  the  heads  of  departments  are 
not  eligible  to  the  presidency  till  they  have 
been  a  certain  number  of  years  out  of 
office.  It  is  rarely  that  a  man  passes  through 
all  the  grades  to  the  headship  of  a  department 
much  before  he  is  forty,  and  at  the  end  of  a 


264  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

five  years  term  he  is  usiialh'  fort3'-five.  If 
more,  he  still  serves  through  his  term,  and  if 
less,  he  is  nevertheless  discharged  from  the 
industrial  army  at  its  termination.  It  would 
not  do  for  him  to  return  to  the  ranks.  The  in- 
terval before  he  is  a  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dency is  intended  to  give  time  for  him  to 
recognize  fully  that  he  has  returned  into  the 
general  mass  of  the  nation,  and  is  identified 
with  it  rather  than  with  the  industrial  army. 
Moreover,  it  is  expected  that  he  will  employ 
this  period  in  studying  the  general  condition  of 
the  army,  instead  of  that  of  the  special  group 
of  guilds  of  which  he  was  the  head.  From 
among  the  former  heads  of  departments  who 
may  be  eligible  at  the  time,  the  president  is 
elected  by  vote  of  all  the  men  of  the  nation 
who  are  not  connected  with  the  industrial 
army." 

"  The  army  is  not  allowed  to  vote  for  presi- 
dent?" 

"Certainly  not.     That  would  be  perilous  to 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  265 

its  discipline,  which  it  is  the  business  of  tlie 
president  to  maintain  as  the  representative 
of  the  nation  at  large.  The  president  is 
usually  not  far  from  fifty  when  elected,  and 
serves  five  years,  forming  an  honorable  excep- 
tion to  the  rule  of  retirement  at  forty-five.  At 
the  end  of  his  term  of  office,  a  national  Con- 
gress is  called  to  receive  his  report  and 
approve  or  condemn  it.  If  it  is  approved, 
Congress  usually  elects  him  to  represent  the 
nation  for  five  years  more  in  the  international 
council.  Congress,  I  should  also  say,  passes 
on  the  reports  of  the  outgoing  heads  of  depart- 
ments, and  a  disapproval  renders  any  one  of 
them  ineligible  for  president.  But  it  is  rare, 
indeed,  that  the  nation  lir.s  occasion  for  other 
sentiments  than  those  of  gratitude  toward  its 
high  officers.  As  to  their  abihty,  to  have  risen 
from  the  ranks  by  tests  so  various  and  severe 
to  their  positions,  is  proof  in  itself  of  extraor- 
dinary qualities,  while  as  to  faithfulness,  our 
social  system  leaves  them  absolutely  without 


266  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

an}'  other  motive  than  that  of  winning  the 
esteem  of  their  fellow  citizens.  Corruption  is 
impossible  in  a  society  where  there  is  neither 
poverty  to  be  bribed  or  wealth  to  bribe,  Avhile 
as  to  demagoguer}^  or  intrigue  for  office,  the 
conditions  of  promotion  render  them  out  of  the 
question." 

"One  point  I  do  not  quite  understand,"  I 
said.  "  Are  the  members  of  the  liberal  profes- 
sions ehgiblc  to  the  presidency;  and  if  so, 
how  are  they  ranked  with  those  who  pursue  the 
industries  proper?  " 

"They  have  no  ranking  with  them,"  replied 
Dr.  Leete.  "  The  members  of  the  technical 
professions,  such  as  engineers  and  architects, 
liave  a  ranking  with  the  constructive  guilds ; 
but  the  members  of  the  liberal  professions,  the 
doctors,  teachers,  as  well  as  the  artists  and  men 
of  letters  who  obtain  remissions  of  industrial 
service,  do  not  belong  to  the  industrial  arm}^ 
On  this  ground  the}'  vote  for  the  president, 
but  are  not  eligible  to  his  office.     One  of  its 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  267 

main  duties  being  the  control  and  discipline  of 
the  industrial  army,  it  is  esssential  that  the 
president  should  have  passed  through  all  its 
grades  to  understand  his  business." 

"That  is  reasonable,"  I  said;  ''but  if  the 
doctors  and  teachers  do  not  know  enough  of 
industry  to  be  president,  neither,  I  should  think, 
can  the  president  know  enough  of  medicine 
and  education  to  control  those  departments." 

"No  more  does  he,"  was  the  reply.  "Ex- 
cept in  the  general  way  that  he  is  responsible 
for  the  enforcement  of  the  laws  as  to  all 
classes,  the  president  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  faculties  of  medicine  and  education,  which 
are  controlled  by  boards  of  regents  of  their 
own,  in  which  the  president  is  ex-officio  chair- 
man and  has  the  casting  vote.  These  regents, 
who,  of  course,  are  responsible  to  Congress, 
are  chosen  by  the  honorary  members  of  the 
guilds  of  education  and  medicine,  the  retired 
teachers  and  doctors  of  the  countr}^" 

"Do  you   know,"  I    said,  "the  method   of 


268  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

electing  officials  by  votes  of  the  retired  mem- 
bers' of  the  guilds  is  nothing  more  than  the 
application  on  a  national  scale  of  the  plan  of 
government  by  alumni,  which  we  used  to  a 
slight  extent  occasionally  in  the  management 
of  our  higher  educational  institutions." 

"Did  you,  indeed?"  exclaimed  Dr.  Leete, 
with  animation.  "That  is  quite  new  to  me, 
and  I  fancy  will  be  to  most  of  us,  and  of  much 
interest  as  well.  There  has  been  great  dis- 
cussion as  to  the  germ  of  the  idea,  and  we  fan- 
cied that  there  was  for  once  something  new 
under  the  sun.  Well !  well !  In  your  higher 
educational  institutions  !  that  is  interesting  in- 
deed.    You  must  tell  me  more  of  that." 

"Truh^  there  is  very  little  more  to  tell  than 
I  have  told  already,"  I  replied.  "If  we  had 
the  germ  of  your  idea,  it  was  but  as  a  germ." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  269 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

^TT^HAT  evening  I  sat  up  for  some  time  alter 
-*■  the  ladies  had  retired,  talking  with  Dr. 
Leete  about  the  effect  of  the  plan  of  exempt- 
ino;  men  from  further  service  to  the  nation 
after  the  age  of  forty-five,  a  point  brought  up 
by  his  account  of  the  part  taken  by  the  retired 
citizens  in  the  government. 

"At  forty-five,"  said  I,  "a  man  still  has  ten 
years  of  good  manual  labor  in  him,  and  twice 
ten  years  of  good  intellectual  service.  To 
be  superannuated  at  that  age  and  laid  on  the 
shelf  must  be  regarded  rather  as  a  hardship 
than  a  favor  by  men  of  energetic  dispositions." 

"My  dear  Mr.  West,"  exclaimed  Dr.  Leete, 
beaming  upon  me,  ''3'ou  cannot  have  any 
idea  of  the  piquancy  your  nineteenth  century 
ideas  have  for  us  of  this  day,  the  rare  quaint- 
ness  of  their  effect.     Know,   oh  child  of  an- 


270  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

other  race  and  yet  the  same,  that  the  labor  we 
have  to  render  as  our  part  in  securing  for  the 
nation  the  means  of  a  comfortable  physical 
existence,  is  by  no  means  regarded  as  the 
most  important,  the  most  interesting,  or  the 
most  dignified  employment  of  our  powers. 
We  look  upon  it  as  a  necessar}'  duty  to  be  dis- 
charged before  we  can  fully  devote  ourselves 
to  the  higher  exercise  of  our  faculties,  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  enjoyments  and  pur- 
suits which  alone  mean  life.  Everything  pos- 
sible is  indeed  done  by  the  just  distribution  of 
burdens,  and  by  all  manner  of  special  attrac- 
tions and  incentives  to  relieve  our  labor  of 
irksomeness,  and,  except  in  a  comparative 
sense,  it  is  not  usually  irksome,  and  is  often 
inspiring.  But  it  is  not  our  labor,  but  the 
higher  and  larger  activities  which  the  perform- 
ance of  our  task  will  leave  us  free  to  enter 
upon,  that  are  considered  the  main  business  of 
existence. 

"  Of  course  not  all,  nor  the  majority,  have 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  271 

those  scientific,  artistic,  literary,  or  scholarly 
interests  which  make  leisure  the  one  thing 
valuable  to  their  possessors.  Many  look  upon 
the  last  half  of  life  chiefly  as  a  period  for  enjoy- 
ment of  other  sorts;  for  travel,  for  social  re- 
laxation in  the  company  of  their  lifetime 
friends ;  a  time  for  the  cultivation  of  all 
manner  of  personal  idiosyncracies  and  special 
tastes,  and  the  pursuit  of  every  imaginable 
form  of  recreation ;  in  a  word,  a  time  for  the 
leisurely  and  unperturbed  appreciation  of  the 
good  things  of  the  world  which  they  have 
helped  to  create.  But  whatever  the  differences 
between  our  individual  tastes  as  to  the  use  we 
shall  put  our  leisure  to,  we  all  agree  in  look- 
ing forward  to  the  date  of  our  discharge  as  the 
time  when  we  shall  first  enter  upon  the  full 
enjoyment  of  our  birthright,  the  period  when 
we  shall  first  really  attain  our  majority  and  be- 
come enfranchised  from  discipline  and  control, 
with  the  fee  of  our  lives  vested  in  ourselves. 
As  eager  boys  in  your  day  anticipated  twenty- 


272  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

one,  so  men  nowadays  look  forward  to  forty- 
five.  At  twent3-one  we  become  men,  but  at 
forty-five  we  renew  youth.  Middle  age,  and 
what  3'ou  would  have  called  old  age,  are  con- 
sidered, rather  than  youth,  the  enviable  time 
of  life.  Thanks  to  the  better  conditions  of 
existence  nowadays,  and  above  all  the  free- 
dom of  every  one  from  care,  old  age  ap- 
proaches many  3^ears  later  and  has  an  aspect 
far  more  benign  than  in  past  times.  Persons 
of  average  constitution  usually  live  to  eight}^- 
five  or  ninety,  and  at  forty-five  we  are  physi- 
cally and  mentally  younger,  I  fancy,  than  you 
w^ere  at  thirty-five.  It  is  a  strange  reflection 
that  at  forty-five,  when  we  are  just  entering 
upon  the  most  enjoyable  period  of  life,  you 
already  began  to  think  of  growing  old  and  to 
look  backward.  With  you  it  was  the  fore- 
noon, but  with  us  it  is  the  afternoon  which  is 
the  briiihter  half  of  life." 

After  this  I  remember  that  our  talk  branched 
into  the  subject  of  popular  sports  and  recrea- 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  273 

tions    at   the    present  time    as    compared  with 
those  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

"In  one  respect,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  "there  is 
a  marked  difference.  The  professional  sports- 
men', which  were  such  a  curious  feature  of 
your  day,  we  have  nothing  answering  to,  nor 
are  the  prizes  for  which  our  athletes  contend 
mone}^  prizes,  as  with  you.  Our  contests  are 
alwa3^s  for  glory  only.  The  generous  rivalry 
existing  between  the  various  guilds,  and  the 
loyalty  of  each  worker  to  his  own,  aiford  a 
constant  stimulation  to  all  sorts  of  games  and 
matches  by  sea  and  land,  in  which  the  young 
men  take  scarcely  more  interest  than  the  hon- 
orary guildsmen  who  have  served  their  time. 
The  guild  yacht  races  off  Marblehead  take 
place  next  week  and  you  will  be  able  to  judge 
for  3^ourself  of  the  popular  enthusiasm  which 
such  events  nowadays  call  out  as  compared 
with  your  day.  The  demand  for  'fancm  ct 
circenses '  preferred  by  the  Roman  populace 
is  recognized  nowadays  as  a  wholly  reasona- 


274  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

ble  one.  If  bread  is  the  first  necessity  of  life, 
i;ecreation  is  a  close  second,  and  the  nation 
caters  for  both.  Americans  of  the  nineteenth 
century  were  as  unfortunate  in  Lacking  an  ade- 
quate provision  for  the  one  sort  of  need  as  for 
the  other.  Evjn  if  the  people  of  that  period 
had  enjoyed  larger  leisure,  they  would,  I 
fancy,  have  often  been  at  loss  how  to  pass  it 
agreeably.     We    are    never   in    that    predica- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  275 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

TN  the  course  of  an  early  morning  constltu- 
-*■  tional,  I  visited  Charlestown.  Among  the 
changes,  too  numerous  to  attempt  to  indicate, 
which  mark  the  lapse  of  a  century  in  that 
quarter,  I  particularly  noted  the  total  disap- 
pearance of  the  old  state  prison. 

"That  went  before  my  day,  but  I  remember 
hearing  about  it,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  when  I 
alluded  to  the  fact  at  the  breakfast  table. 
"We  have  no  jails  nowadays.  All  cases  of 
atavism  are  treated  in  the  hospitals." 

"Of  atavism!"  I  exclaimed,  staring. 

"  Why,  yes,"  replied  Dr.  Leete.  "  The  idea 
of  dealing  punitively  with  those  unfortunates 
was  given  up  at  least  fifty  years  ago,  and  I 
think  more." 

"  I  don't  quite  understand  you,"  I  said. 
"  Atavism    in  my  day  was  a  word  applied  to 


276  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

the  cases  of  persons  in  whom  some  trait  of  a 
remote  ancestor  recurred  in  a  noticeable  man- 
ner. Am  I  to  understand  that  crime  is  nowa- 
days looked  upon  as  the  recurrence  of  an  an- 
cestral trait?  " 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  with 
a  smile  half  humorous,  half  deprecating,  "but 
since  3^ou  have  so  explicitly  asked  the  ques- 
tion, I  am  forced  to  say  that  the  fact  is  pre- 
cisely that." 

After  what  I  had  alread}^  learned  of  the 
moral  contrasts  between  the  nineteenth  and 
the  twentieth  centuries,  it  \vas  doubtless  ab- 
surd in  me  to  begin  to  develop  sensitiveness 
on  the  subject,  and  probably  if  Dr.  Leete  had 
not  spoken  with  that  apologetic  air  and  Mrs. 
Leete  and  Edith  shown  a  corresponding  em- 
barrassment, I  should  not  have  flushed,  as  I 
was  conscious  I  did. 

"I  was  not  in  much  dani^er  of  beinic  vain  of 
my  generation  before,"  I  said  ;  "but,  really  —  " 

"This  is  your  generation,  Mr.  West,"  inter- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  277 

posed  Edith.  "  It  is  the  one  in  which  you  are 
Hving  3^011  know,  and  it  is  only  because  we 
are  alive  now  that  we  call  it  ours." 

"Thank  you.  I  will  try  to  think  of  it  so,"  I 
said,  and  as  my  eyes  met  hers  their  expression 
quite  cured  my  senseless  sensitiveness.  "Af- 
ter all,"  I  said,  with  a  laugh,  "I  was  brought 
up  a  Calvinist,  and  ought  not  to  be  startled  to 
hear  crime  spoken  of  as  an  ancestral  trait." 

"In  point  of  fact,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  "our 
use  of  the  word  is  no  reflection  at  all  on  your 
generation,  if,  begging  Edith's  pardon,  we 
may  call  it  yours,  so  far  as  seeming  to  imply 
that  we  think  ourselves,  apart  from  our  circum- 
stances, better  than  3'ou  were.  In  3'our  da3^ 
full3^  nineteen  twentieths  of  the  crime,  using 
the  word  broadl3^  to  include  all  sorts  of  misde- 
meanors, resulted  from  the  inequality  in  the 
possessions  of  individuals  ;  want  tempted  the 
poor,  lust  of  greater  gains,  or  the  desire  to 
preserve  former  gains,  tem.pted  the  well-to- 
do.       Directly   or    indirect^,    the    desire   for 


278  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

money,  which  then  meant  every  good  thing, 
was  the  motive  of  all  tliis  crime,  the  taproot  of 
a  vast  poison  growth,  which  tlie  machinery  of 
law,  courts,  and  police  could  barely  prevent 
from  choking  your  civilization  outright. 
When  we  made  the  nation  the  sole  trustee 
of  the  wealth  of  the  people,  and  guaranteed 
to  all  abundant  maintenance,  on  the  one  hand 
abolishing  want,  and  on  the  other  checking 
the  accumulation  of  riches,  we  cut  this  root 
and  the  poison  tree  that  overshadowed  your 
society,  withered  like  Jonah's  gourd,  in  a  day. 
As  for  the  comparatively  small  class  of  vio- 
lent crimes  against  persons,  unconnected  with 
any  idea  of  gain,  they  were  almost  wholly 
confined,  even  in  your  day,  to  the  ignorant 
and  bestial,  and  in  these  days  when  educa- 
tion and  good  manners  are  not  the  monopoly 
of  a  few,  but  universal,  such  atrocities  are 
scarcely  ever  heard  of.  You  now  see  why 
the  word  ''  atavism "  is  used  for  crime.  It  is 
because  nearly  all  forms  of  crime  known  to 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  279 

you  are  motiveless  now,  and  when  they  appear, 
can  only  be  explained  as  the  outcropping  of 
ancestral  traits.  You  used  to  call  persons 
who  stole,  evidently  without  any  rational  mo- 
tive, kleptomaniacs,  and  when  the  case  was 
clear  deemed  it  absurd  to  punish  them  as 
thieves.  Your  attitude  toward  the  genuine 
kleptomaniac  is  precisely  ours  toward  the  vic- 
tim of  atavism,  an  attitude  of  compassion  and 
iirm  but  gentle  restraint." 

"Your  courts  must  have  an  easy  time  of  it,"  I 
observed.  "With  no  private  property  to  speak 
of,  no  disputes  between  citizens  over  business 
relations,  no  real  estate  to  divide  or  debts  to 
collect,  there  must  be  absolutely  no  civil  busi- 
ness at  all  for  them  ;  and  with  no  offences 
against  propert}^  and  mighty  few  of  any  sort 
to  provide  criminal  cases,  I  should  think  you 
might  almost  do  without  judges  and  lawj'ers 
altogether." 

"We  do  without  the  lawyers,  certainly,'" 
Vv'as  Dr.  Leete's  reply.     "  It  would  not  seem 


28o  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

reasonable  to  us,  in  a  case  where  the  only 
interest  of  the  nation  is  to  find  out  the  truth, 
that  persons  should  take  part  in  the  proceed- 
ings who  had  an  acknowledged  motive  to 
color  it." 

"But  who  defends  the  accused?" 

"If  he  is  a  criminal  he  needs  no  defence,  for 
he  pleads  guilty  in  most  instances,"  replied  Dr. 
Leete.  "The  plea  of  the  accused  is  not  a 
mere  formality  with  us  as  with  you.  It  is 
usually  the  end  of  the  case." 

"You  don't  mean  that  the  man  w^ho  pleads 
not  guilt}^  is  thereupon  discharged  ?  " 

"No,  I  do  not  mean  that.  He  is  not  ac- 
cused on  light  grounds,  and  if  he  denies  his 
guilt,  must  still  be  tried.  But  trials  are  few, 
for  in  most  cases  the  guilty  man  pleads  guilty. 
When  he  makes  a  false  plea  and  is  clearly 
proved  guilt}^  his  penalty  is  doubled.  False- 
liood  is,  how^ever,  so  despised  among  us  tliat 
few  offenders  would  lie  to  save  themselves." 

"That  is   the    most    astounding    thing   you 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  28 1 

have  yet  told  me,"  I  exclaimed.  "If  lying 
has  gone  out  of  fashion,  this  is  indeed  the 
'new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness,'  which  the  prophet 
foretold." 

"Such  is,  in  fact,  the  belief  of  some  persons 
nowadays,"  was  the  doctor's  answer.     "They 
hold  that  we    have  entered  upon  the  millen- 
nium, and  the  theory  from  their  point  of  view 
does   not    lack    plausibility.     But  as    to    your 
astonishment  at  finding  that  the  world  has  out-  ' 
grown  lying,  there  is  really  no  ground  for  it. 
Falsehood,  even  in  your  day,  was  not  common 
between  gentlemen  and  ladies,  social  equals. 
The  lie  of  fear  was  the  refuge  of  cowardice, 
and  the  lie  of  fraud   the  device  of  the  cheat. 
The  inequalities  of  men  and  the  lust  of  acqui- 
sition offered  a  constant  premium  on  lying  at 
that  time.     Yet  even  then,  the  man  who  nei- 
ther feared  another  nor  desired  to  defraud  him, 
scorned  falsehood.     Because  we  are  now  all 
social  equals,  and  no  man  either  has  anything 


282  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

to  fear  from  another  or  can  gain  anything  by 
deceiving  him,  the  contempt  of  falsehood  is  so 
universal  that  it  is  rarely,  as  I  told  you,  that 
even  a  criminal  in  other  respects  will  be  found 
willing  to  lie.  When,  however,  a  plea  of 
not  guilty  is  returned,  the  judge  appoints  two 
colleagues  to  state  the  opposite  sides  of  the 
case.  How  far  these  men  are  from  being  like 
your  hired  advocates  and  prosecutors,  deter- 
mined to  acquit  or  convict,  may  appear  from 
the  fact  that  unless  both  agree  that  the  verdict 
found  is  just,  the  case  is  tried  over,  while  any- 
thing like  bias  in  the  tone  of  either  of  the 
judges  stating  the  case  would  be  a  shocking 
scandal." 

"  Do  I  understand,"  I  said,  "  that  it  is  a  judge 
who  states  each  side  of  the  case  as  well  as  a 
judge  who  hears  it?  " 

"  Certainly.  The  judges  take  turns  in  serv- 
ing on  the  bench  and  at  the  bar,  and  are  ex- 
pected to  maintain  the  judicial  temper  equally 
whether  in  stating  or  deciding  a  case.     The 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  283 

system  is  indeed  in  effect  that  of  trial  by  three 
judges  occupying  different  points  of  view  as  to 
the  case.  When  they  agree  upon  a  verdict, 
we  beheve  it  to  be  as  near  to  absolute  truth  as 
men  well  can  come." 

"You  have  given  up  the  jury  system,  then?" 
"  It  was  well  enough  as  a  corrective  in  the 
days  of  hired  advocates,  and  a  bench  some- 
times venal,  and  often  with  a  tenure  that  made 
it  dependent,  but  is  needless  now.  No  con- 
ceivable motive  but  justice  could  actuate  our 
judges." 

"How  are  these  magistrates  selected?" 
"They  are  an  honorable  exception  to  the 
rule  which  discharges  all  men  from  service  at 
the  age  of  forty-five.  The  president  of  the 
nation  appoints  the  necessary  judges  year  by 
year  from  the  class  reaching  that  age.  The 
number  appointed  is,  of  course,  exceedingly 
few,  and  the  honor  so  high  that  it  is  held  an 
ofTset  to  the  additional  term  of  service  which 
follows,    and   though    a  judge's    appointment 


284  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

may  be  declined,  it  rarely  is.  The  term  is  five 
years,  without  eligibility  to  reappointment. 
The  members  of  the  Supreme  Court,  which  is 
the  guardian  of  the  constitution,  are  selected 
from  among  the  lower  judges.  Wlien  a  va- 
cancy in  that  court  occurs,  those  of  the  lower 
judges,  whose  terms  expire  that  year,  select, 
as  their  last  official  act,  the  one  of  their  col- 
leagues left  on  the  bench  whom  they  deem 
fittest  to  fill  it." 

■'There  being  no  legal  profession  to  serve  as 
a  school  for  judges,''  I  said,  "they  must,  of 
course,  come  directly  from  the  law  school  to 
the  bench." 

"We  have  no  such  things  as  law  schools," 
replied  the  doctor,  smiling.  "The  law  as  a 
special  science  is  obsolete.  It  was  a  system  of 
casuistry  which  the  elaborate  artificiality  of  the 
old  order  of  society  absolutely  required  to  inter- 
pret it,  but  onl}^  a  few  of  the  plainest  and  simplest 
legal  maxims  have  any  application  to  the  exist- 
ing state  of  the  world.    Ever3'thing  touching  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  285 

relations  of  men  to  one  another  is  now  simpler, 
beyond  any  comparison,  than  in  your  day. 
We  should  have  no  sort  of  use  for  the  hair- 
splitting experts  who  presided  and  argued  in 
your  courts.  You  must  not  imagine,  however, 
that  we  have  any  disrespect  for  those  ancient 
worthies  because  we  have  no  use  for  them. 
On  the  contrary,  we  entertain  an  unteigned 
respect,  amounting  almost  to  awe,  for  the  men 
who  alone  vmderstood  and  were  able  to  ex- 
pound the  interminable  complexity  of  the 
rights  of  property,  and  the  relations  of  com- 
mercial and  personal  dependence  involved  in 
your  system.  What,  indeed,  could  possibly 
give  a  more  powerful  impression  of  the  in- 
tricacy and  artificiality  of  that  system  than 
the  fact  that  it  was  necessary  to  set  apart  from 
other  pursuits  the  cream  of  the  intellect  of 
every  generation,  in  order  to  provide  a  body  of 
pundits  able  to  make  it  even  vaguely  intelligi- 
ble to  those  whose  fates  it  determined.  The 
treatises  of  your  great  lawyers,  the  works  of 


286  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

Blackstone  and  Chitty,  of  Story  and  Parsons, 
stand  in  our  museums,  side  by  side  with  the 
tomes  of  Duns  Scotus  and  his  fellow  scho- 
lastics, as  curious  monuments  of  intellectual 
subtlety  devoted  to  subjects  equally  remote 
from  the  interests  of  modern  men.  Our  judges 
are  simply  widely  informed,  judicious,  and 
discreet  men  of  ripe  years." 

"  I  should  not  fail  to  speak  of  one  important 
function  of  the  minor  judges,"  added  Dr. 
Leete.  "This  is  to  adjudicate  all  cases 
where  a  private  of  the  industrial  army  makes 
a  complaint  of  unfairness  against  an  officer. 
All  such  questions  are  heard  and  settled  with- 
out appeal  by  a  single  judge,  three  judges 
being  required  only  in  graver  cases." 

"There  must  be  need  of  such  a  tribunal  in 
your  system,  for  under  it  a  man  who  is  treated 
unfairly  cannot  leave  his  place  as  with  us." 

"  Certainly  he  can,"  replied  Dr.  Leete.  "  Not 
only  is  a  man  ahvays  sure  of  a  fair  hearing 
and    redress    in    case    of    actual    oppression, 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  287 

but  if  his  relations  with  his  foreman  or  chief 
are  unpleasant,  he  can  secure  a  transfer  on 
application.  Under  your  system  a  man  could 
indeed  leave  work  if  he  did  not  like  his  em- 
ployer, but  be  left  his  means  of  support  at  the 
same  time.  One  of  our  workmen,  however, 
who  finds  himself  disagreeably  situated  is  not 
obliged  to  risk  his  means  of  subsistence  to  find 
fair  play.  The  efficiency  of  industry  requires 
the  strictest  discipline  in  the  army  of  labor, 
but  the  claim  of  the  workman  to  just  and  con- 
siderate treatment  is  backed  by  the  whole  power 
of  the  nation.  The  ofiicer  commands  and  the 
private  obeys,  but  no  officer  is  so  high  that  he 
would  dare  display  an  overbearing  manner 
toward  a  workman  of  the  lowest  class.  As 
for  churlishness  or  rudeness  by  an  official 
of  any  sort,  in  his  relations  to  the  public,  not 
one  amoncr  minor  offences  is  more  sure  of 
a  prompt  penalty  than  this.  Not  only  justice 
but  civility  is  enforced  b}^  our  judges  in  all 
sorts  of  intercourse.     No  value  of  service  is 


288  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

accepted  as  a  set  off  to  boorish  or  offensive 
manners." 

It  occurred  to  me,  as  Dr.  Leete  was  speak- 
incr,  that  in  all  his  talk  I  had  heard  much  of 
the  nation  and  nothing  of  the  state  govern- 
ments. Had  the  organization  of  the  nation  as 
an  industrial  unit  done  away  with  the  states? 
I  asked. 

"Necessaril}^,"  he  replied.  "The  state  gov- 
ernments would  have  interfered  with  the  con- 
trol and  discipline  of  the  industrial  army, 
which,  of  course,  required  to  be  central  and 
uniform.  Even  if  the  state  governments  had 
not  become  inconvenient  for  other  reasons, 
they  were  rendered  superfluous  by  the  prodig- 
ious simplification  in  the  task  of  government 
since  your  day.  Almost  the  sole  function  of 
the  administration  now  is  that  of  directing  the 
industries  of  the  countr}-.  Most  of  the  pur- 
poses for  which  governments  formerly  existed 
no  lono^er  remain  to  be  subserved.  We  have 
no   arm^j'  or  navy,  and  no   military  organiza- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  289 

tioii.     We    have    no    departments   of  state  or 
treasury,    no    excise  or  revenue   services,    no 
taxes   or   tax   collectors.     The    only    function 
proper  of  government,  as  known  to  you,  which 
still  remains,  is  the  judiciary  and  police  system. 
I  have  already  explained  to  you  how  simple  is 
our  judicial  system    as    compared   wdth    your 
huge  and  complex    machine.     Of  course  the 
same    absence    of  crime  and  temptation  to  it 
which    make    the    dudes   of  judges    so   light, 
reduces  the  number  and  dudes  of  the  police  to 
a  minimum." 

"But  with  no  state  legislatures,  and  Con- 
gress meeting  only  once  in  five  years,  how  do 
you  get  your  legisladon  done?  " 

"We  have  no  legisladon,"  rephed  Dr.  Leete, 
—  "  that  is,  next  to  none.  It  is  rarely  that  Con- 
gress, even  when  it  meets,  considers  any  new 
laws  of  consequence,  and  then  it  only  has 
power  to  commend  them  to  the  following  Con- 
gress, lest  anything  be  done  hasdly.  If  you 
will  consider  a  moment,  Mr.  West,  you  will 


290  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

see  that  we  have  nothing  to  make  h\ws  about. 
The  fundamental  principles  on  which  our 
society  is  founded  settle  for  all  time  the  strifes 
and  misundestandings  which,  in  3'our  day, 
called  for  legislation. 

"Fully  ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the  laws 
of  that  time  concerned  the  definition  and  pro- 
tection of  private  property  and  the  relations  of 
buyers  and  sellers.  There  is  neither  private 
propert}',  beyond  personal  belongings,  now, 
nor  buying  and  selling,  and  therefore  the  oc- 
casion of  nearly  all  the  legislation  formerly 
necessary  has  passed  away.  Formerly,  society 
was  a  pyramid  poised  on  its  apex.  All  the 
gravitations  of  human  nature  were  constantly 
tending  to  topple  it  over,  and  it  could  be  main- 
tained upright,  or  rather  upwrong  (if  you  will 
pardon  the  feeble  witticism)  by  an  elaborate 
system  of  constantly  renewed  props  and  but- 
tresses and  guy-ropes  in  the  form  of  laws.  A 
central  Congress  and  forty  state  legislatures 
turning  out  some  twenty  thousand  laws  a  year, 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  29 1 

could  not  make  new  props  fast  enough  to  take 
the  place  of  those  which  were  constantly  break- 
ino-  down  or  becoming-  ineffectual  throui^h  some 
shifting"  of  the  strain.  Now  society  rests  on 
its  base,  and  is  in  as  little  need  of  artificial 
supports  as  the  everlasting  hills." 

"  But  you  have  at  least  municipal  govern- 
ments besides  the  one  central  authority?" 

"Certainly,  and  they  have  important  and 
extensive  functions  in  looking  out  for  the  pub- 
lic comfort  and  recreation,  and  the  improve- 
ment and  embellishment  of  the  villages  and 
cities." 

''  But  having  no  control  over  the  labor  of 
their  people,  or  means  of  hiring  it,  how  can 
they  do  anything?" 

"Every  town  or  city  is  conceded  the  right 
to  retain,  for  its  own  public  works,  a  certain 
proportion  of  the  quota  of  labor  its  citizens 
contribute  to  the  nation.  This  proportion, 
being  assigned  it  as  so  much  credit,  can  be 
applied  in  any  way  desired." 


292  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 


CHAPTER  XX. 

'TT^HAT  afternoon  Edith  casually  inquired 
if  I  had  yet  revisited  the  underground 
chamber  in  the  garden  in  which  I  had  been 
found. 

"  Not  yet,"  I  replied.  "  To  be  frank,  I  have 
shrunk  thus  far  from  doing  so,  lest  the  visit 
might  revive  old  associations  rather  too  strong- 
ly for  my  mental  equilibrium." 

"Ah,  yes!"  she  said,  ''I  can  imagine  that 
you  have  done  well  to  stay  away.  I  ought  to 
have  thought  of  that." 

"No,"  I  said,  "I  am  glad  you  spoke  of 
it.  The  danger,  if  there  was  any,  existed  only 
during  the  first  day  or  two.  Thanks  to  you, 
chiefly  and  always,  I  feel  m}-  footing  now  so 
firm  in  this  new  world,  that  if  you  w^ill  go 
with  me  to  keep  the  ghosts  ofl^,  I  should  really 
like  to  visit  the  place  this  afternoon," 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  293 

Edith  demurred  at  first,  but,  finding  that  I 
was  in  earnest,  consented  to  accompany  me. 
The  rampart  of  earth  thrown  up  from  the 
excavation  was  visible  amonii^  the  trees  from 
the  house,  and  a  few  steps  brought  us  to  the 
spot.  All  remained  as  it  was  at  the  point 
when  work  was  interrupted  by  the  discovery 
of  the  tenant  of  the  chamber,  save  that  the 
door  had  been  opened  and  the  slab  from  the 
roof  replaced.  Descending  the  sloping  sides 
of  the  excavation,  we  went  in  at  the  door  and 
stood  within  the  dimly  lighted  room. 

Everything  was  just  as  I  had  beheld  it  last 
on  that  evening  one  hundred  and  thirteen  years 
previous,  just  before  closing  my  eyes  for  that 
long  sleep.  I  stood  for  some  time  silently 
looking  about  me.  I  saw  that  my  companion 
was  furtively  regarding  me  with  an  expression 
of  awed  and  sympathetic  curiosit}^.  I  put  out 
my  hand  to  her  and  she  placed  hers  in  it,  the 
soft  fingers  responding  with  a  reassuring  pres- 
sure   to    my  clasp.       Finally   she  whispered, 


294  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

"Had  we  not  better  go  out  now?  You  must 
not  try  yourself  too  far.  0\\^  how  strange  it 
must  be  to  you  !  " 

"On  the  contrar}',"  I  rephed,  "it  does  not 
seem  strange  ;  that  is  the  strangest  part  of  it." 

"Not  strange?"  she  echoed. 

"Even  so,"  I  repHed.  "The  emotions  with 
which  you  evidently  credit  me,  and  which  I 
anticipated  would  attend  this  visit,  I  simply  do 
not  feel.  I  realize  all  that  these  surrounding's 
suggest,  but  without  the  agitation  I  expected. 
You  can't  be  nearly  as  much  surprised  at  this 
as  I  am  myself.  Ever  since  that  terrible  morn- 
ing when  you  came  to  my  help,  I  have  tried 
to  avoid  thinking  of  my  former  life,  just  as  I 
have  avoided  comincr  here,  for  fear  of  the  am- 
tating  effects.  I  am  for  all  the  world  like  a 
man  who  has  permitted  an  injured  limb  to  lie 
motionless  under  the  impression  that  it  is  ex- 
quisitely sensitive,  and  on  trying  to  move  it 
finds  that  it  is  paral3-zed." 

"  Do  you  mean  your  memory  is  gone  ?  " 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  295 

"Not  at  all.  I  remember  everything  con- 
nected with  my  former  life,  but  with  a  total 
lack  of  keen  sensation.  I  remember  it  for 
clearness  as  if  it  had  been  but  a  day  since 
then,  but  my  feelings  about  what  I  remember 
are  as  faint  as  if  to  my  consciousness,  as  well 
as  in  fact,  a  hundred  years  had  intervened. 
Perhaps  -it  is  possible  to  explain  this,  too. 
The  effect  of  change  in  surroundings  is  like 
that  of  lapse  of  time  in  making  the  past  seem 
remote.  When  I  first  woke  from  that  trance, 
my  former  life  appeared  as  yesterday,  but 
now,  since  I  have  learned  to  know  my  new  sur- 
roundings, and  to  realize  the  prodigious 
changes  that  have  transformed  the  world,  I 
no  longer  find  it  hard,  but  very  easy,  to  realize 
that  I  have  slept  a  century.  Can  you  conceive 
of  such  a  thing  as  living  a  hundred  years  in 
four  days?  It  really  seems  to  me  that  I  have 
done  just  that,  and  that  it  is  this  experience 
which  has  given  so  remote  and  unreal  an 
appearance  to  my  former  life.  Can  you  see 
how  such  a  thing  might  be  ? " 


296  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

"I  can  conceive  it,"  replied  Edith,  medita- 
tivel}^  "  and  I  tliink  we  ought  all  to  be  thank- 
ful that  it  is  so,  for  it  will  save  you  much  suf- 
fering, I  am  sure." 

"Imagine,"  I  said,  in  an  effort  to  explain,  as 
much  to  myself  as  to  her,  the  strangeness  of 
my  mental  condition,  "that  a  man  first  heard 
of  a  bereavement  many,  many  years,  half  a 
lifetime  perhaps,  after  the  event  occurred.  I 
fancy  his  feeling  would  be  perhaps  something 
as  mine  is.  When  I  think  of  m}-  friends  in 
the  world  of  that  former  day,  and  the  sorrow 
they  must  have  felt  for  me,  it  is  with  a  pen- 
sive pity,  rather  than  keen  anguish,  as  of  a 
sorrow  long,  long  ago  ended." 

"You  have  told  us  nothing  yet  of  your 
friends,"  said  Edith.  "  Had  you  many  to 
mourn  3'ou  ?  " 

"  Thank  God,  I  had  very  few  relatives,  none 
nearer  than  cousins,"  I  replied.  "But  there 
was  one,  not  a  relative,  but  dearer  to  me  than 
any  kin  of  blood.  She  had  your  name.  She 
was  to  have  been  my  wife  soon.     Ah  me  !  " 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  297 

"Ah  me!"  sighed  the  Edith  by  my  side. 
"Think  of  the  heartache  she  must  have  had." 

Something  in  the  deep  feeling  of  this  gende 
girl  touched  a  chord  in  my  benumbed  heart. 
My  eyes,  before  so  dry,  were  flooded  with  the 
tears  that  had  till  now  refused  to  come.  When 
I  had  regained  my  composure,  I  saw  that  she 
too  had  been  weeping  freely. 

"God  bless  your  tender  heart,"  I  said. 
"Would  you  like  to  see  her  picture?" 

A  small  locket  with  Edith  Bardett's  picture, 
secured  about  my  neck  with  a  gold  chain,  had 
lain  upon  my  breast  all  through  that  long 
sleep,  and  removing  this  I  opened  and  gave 
it  to  my  companion.  She  took  it  with  eager- 
ness, and  after  poring  long  over  the  sweet  face, 
touched  the  picture  with  her  lips. 

"I  know  that  she  was  good  and  lovely 
enough  to  well  deserve  your  tears,"  she  said  ; 
"but  remember  her  heartache  was  over  long 
ago,  and  she  has  been  in  heaven  for  nearly 
a  century." 


298  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

It  was  indeed  so.  Whatever  her  sorrow 
had  once  been,  for  nearly  a  century  she  had 
ceased  to  A\'eep,  and,  my  sudden  passion 
spent,  my  own  tears  dried  away.  I  had  loved 
her  very  dearly  in  my  other  life,  but  it  was  a 
hundred  years  ago  !  I  do  not  know  but  some 
may  find  in  this  confession  evidence  of  lack  of 
feeling,  but  I  think,  perhaps,  that  none  can 
have  had  an  experience  sufficiently  like  mine 
to  enable  them  to  judge  me.  As  we  were 
about  to  leave  the  chamber,  my  eye  rested 
upon  the  great  iron  safe  which  stood  in  one 
corner.  Calling  my  companion's  attention  to 
it,  I  said  : 

"  This  was  my  strong  room  as  well  as  my 
sleeping  room.  In  the  safe  yonder  are  several 
thousand  dollars  in  gold,  and  any  amount  of 
securities.  If  I  had  known  when  I  went  to 
sleep  that  night  just  how  long  my  nap  would 
be,  I  should  still  have  thought  that  the  gold 
was  a  safe  provision  for  my  needs  in  any 
country   or    any    century,    however    distant. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  299 

That  a  time  would  ever  come  when  it  would 
lose  its  purchasing  power,  I  should  have  con- 
sidered the  wildest  of  fancies.  Nevertheless, 
here  I  wake  up  to  find  myself  among  a  people 
of  whom  a  cart-load  of  gold  will  not  procure  a 
loaf  of  bread." 

As  might  be  expected,  I  did  not  succeed  in 
impressing  Edith  that  there  was  anything  re- 
markable in  this  fact.  "  Why  in  the  world 
should  it?  "  she  merely  asked. 


300  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

TT  had  been  suggested  by  Dr.  Leete  that 
we  should  devote  the  next  morning  to  an 
inspection  <d{  the  schools  and  colleges  of  the 
city,  with  some  attempt  on  his  own  part  at  an 
explanation  of  the  educational  system  of  the 
twentieth  century. 

"You  will  see,"  said  he,  as  we  set  out  after 
breakfast,  "many  very  important  differences, 
between  our  methods  of  education  and  yours, 
but  the  main  difference  is  that  nowadays  all 
persons  equally  have  those  opportunities  of 
higher  education  which,  in  your  day,  only  an 
infinitesimal  portion  of  the  population  enjoyed. 
We  should  think  we  had  gained  nothing  worth 
speaking  of,  in  equalizing  the  physical  com- 
fort of  men,  without  this  educational  equality." 

"The  cost  must  be  very  geat,"  I  said. 

"If  it  took  half  the  revenue  of  the  nation, 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  301 

nobody  would  grudge  it,"  replied  Dr.  Leete, 
"nor  even  if  it  took  it  all  save  a  bare  pittance. 
But  in  truth  the  expense  of  educating  ten 
thousand  youth  is  not  ten  nor  five  times  that 
of  educating  one  thousand.  The  principle 
which  makes  all  operations  on  a  large  scale 
proportionally  cheaper  than  on  a  small  scale 
holds  as  to  education  also." 

^'  College  education  was  terrible  expensive  in 
my  day,"  said  I. 

"If  I  have  not  been  misinformed  b}^  our 
historians,"  Dr.  Leete  answered,  "it  was 
not  college  education  but  college  dissipa- 
tion and  extravagance  which  cost  so  highly. 
The  actual  expense  of  your  colleges  appears 
to  have  been  very  low,  and  would  have 
been  far  lower  if  their  patronage  had  been 
greater.  The  higher  education  nowadays 
is  as  cheap  as  the  lower,  as  all  grades  of 
teachers,  like  all  other  workers,  receive  the 
same  support.  We  have  simply  added  to  the 
comrnon  school  systera  of  compulsory  educa 


302  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

tion,  in  vogue  in  Massachusetts  a  hundred 
years  ago,  a  half  dozen  higher  grades,  carry- 
ing the  youth  to  the  age  of  twenty-one  and 
giving  him  what  you  used  to  call  the  education 
of  a  gentleman,  instead  of  turning  him  loose 
at  fourteen  or  fifteen  with  no  mental  equip- 
ment beyond  readinor  writincr  and  the  multi- 
plication  table." 

''  Setting  aside  the  actual  cost  of  these  addi- 
tional years  of  education,"  I  replied,  "we 
should  not  have  thought  we  could  afford  the 
loss  of  time  from  industrial  pursuits.  Bo3^s  of 
the  poorer  classes  usually  went  to  work  at 
sixteen  or  younger,  and  knew  their  trade  at 
twenty." 

"  We  should  not  concede  you  any  gain  even 
in  material  product  by  that  plan,"  Dr.  Leete 
replied.  "The  greater  efficiency  which  edu- 
cation gives  to  all  sorts  of  labor,  except  the 
rudest,  makes  up  in  a  short  period  for  the  time 
lost  in  acquiring  it." 

"We  should  also  have  been  afraid,"  said  I, 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  303 

"that  a  high  education,  while  it  adapted 
men  to  the  professions,  would  set  them  against 
manual  labor  of  all  sorts." 

"That  was  the  effect  of  high  education  in 
your  day,  I  have  read,"  replied  the  doctor ; 
"  and  it  was  no  wonder,  for  manual  labor 
meant  association  with  a  rude,  coarse,  and 
ignorant  class  of  people.  There  is  no  such 
class  now.  It  was  inevitable  that  such  a  feeling 
should  exist  then,  for  the  further  reason  that 
all  men  receiving  a  high  education  were 
understood  to  be  destined  for  the  professions 
or  for  wealthy  leisure,  and  such  an  education 
in  one  neither  rich  nor  professional  was  a 
proof  of  disappointed  aspirations,  an  evidence 
of  failure,  a  badge  of  inferiority  rather  than 
superiority.  Nowadays,  of  course,  when  the 
highest  education  is  deemed  necessary  to  lit  a 
man  merely  to  live,  without  any  reference  to 
the  sort  of  work  he  may  do,  its  possession  con- 
veys no  such  implication." 

"  After  all,"   I    remarked,    "  no    amount  of 


304  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

education  can  cure  natural  dullness  or  make 
up  for  original  mental  deficiencies.  Unless 
the  average  natural  mental  capacit}'  of  men  is 
much  above  its  level  in  my  day,  a  .  high 
education  must  be  prett}^  nearh'  thrown  away 
on  a  large  element  of  the  population.  We 
used  to  hold  that  a  certain  amount  of  suscepti- 
bility to  educational  influences  is  required  to 
make  a  mind  worth  cultivating,  just  as  a  cer- 
tain natural  fertility  in  soil  is  required  if  it  is 
to  repay  tilling." 

"Ah,"  said  Dr.  Leete,  "I  am  glad  you  used 
that  illustration,  for  it  is  just  the  one  I  would 
have  chosen  to  set  forth  the  modern  view  of 
education.  You  say  that  land  so  poor  that 
the  product  will  not  repay  the  labor  of  tilling 
is  not  cultivated.  Nevertheless,  much  land 
that  does  not  begin  to  repay  tilling  by  its  pro- 
duct was  cultivated  in  3'our  day  and  is  in  ours. 
I  refer  to  gardens,  parks,  lawns,  and  in  gen- 
eral to  pieces  of  land  so  situated  that,  were 
tliey  lell:  to  grow  up  to  weeds  and  briers,  they 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  305 

would  be  eyesores  and  inconveniences  to  all 
about.  They  are  therefore  tilled,  and  though 
their  product  is  little,  there  is  yet  no  land 
that,  in  a  wider  sense,  better  repays  cultivation. 
So  it  is  with  the  men  and  women  with  whom 
we  mingle  in  the  relations  of  society,  whose 
voices  are  always  in  our  ears,  whose  behaviour 
in  innumerable  ways  affects  our  enjoyment,  — 
who  are,  in  fact,  as  much  conditions  of  our 
lives  as  the  air  we  breathe,  or  any  of  the  phy- 
sical elements  on  which  we  depend.  If,  in- 
deed, we  could  not  afford  to  educate  every- 
body, we  should  choose  the  coarsest  and 
dullest  by  nature,  rather  than  the  brightest,  to 
receive  what  education  we  could  give.  Tlie 
naturally  refined  and  intellectual  can  better 
dispense  with  aids  to  culture  than  those  less 
fortunate  in  natural  endowments. 

"  To  borrow  a  phrase  which  was  often  used 
in  your  day,  we  should  not  consider  life  worth 
living  if  we  had  to  be  surrounded  by  a  popu- 
lation   of    ignorant,    boorish,    coarse,    wholly 


306  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

uncultivated  men  and  women,  as  was  the 
plight  of  the  few  educated  in  your  day.  Is  a 
man  satisfied,  merely  because  he  is  perfumed 
himself,  to  mingle  with  a  malodorous  crowd? 
Could  he  take  more  than  a  very  limited  satis- 
faction, even  in  a  palatial  apartment,  if  the 
windows  on  all  four  sides  opened  into  stable 
yards  ?  And  yet  just  that  was  the  situation  of 
those  considered  most  fortunate  as  to  culture 
and  refinement  in  your  day.  I  know  that  the 
poor  and  ignorant  envied  the  rich  and  cultured 
then;  but  to  us  the  latter,  living  as  they  did, 
surrounded  by  squalor  and  brutishness,  seem 
litde  better  oft'  than  the  former.  The  cultured 
man  in  your  age  was  like  one  up  to  the  neck 
in  a  nauseous  bog  solacing  himself  with  a 
smelHng  bottle.  You  see,  perhaps,  now,  how 
we  look  at  this  question  of  universal  high 
education.  No  single  thing  is  so  important  to 
every  man  as  to  have  for  neighbors  intelligent, 
companionable  persons.  There  is  nothing, 
therefore,  which    the    nation    can  do   for    him 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  307 

that  will  enhance  so  much  his  own  happiness 
as  to  educate  his  neighbors.  When  it  fails  to 
do  so,  the  value  of  his  own  education  to  him  is 
reduced  b}'  half,  and  many  of  the  tastes  he  has 
cultivated  are  made  positive  sources  of  pain. 
"To  educate  some  to  the  highest  degree, 
and  leave  the  mass  wholly  unculdvated,  as 
3'ou  did,  made  the  gap  between  them  almost 
like  that  between  different  natural  species, 
which  have  no  means  of  communication. 
What  could  be  more  inhuman  than  this  con- 
sequence of  a  partial  enjoyment  of  educa- 
tion !  Its  universal  and  equal  enjoyment 
leaves,  indeed,  the  differences  between  men 
as  to  natural  endowments  as  marked  as 
in  a  state  of  nature,  but  the  level  of  the  lowest 
is  vastly  raised.  Brutishness  is  eliminated. 
All  have  some  inkling  of  the  humanities,  some 
appreciation  of  the  things  of  the  mind,  and  an 
admiration  for  the  still  higher  culture  the}' 
have  fallen  short  of.  They  have  become  ca- 
pable   of  receiving  and   imparting,  in  various 


3o8  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

degrees,  but  all  in  some  measure,  the  pleasures 
and  inspirations  of  a  refined  social  life.  The 
cultured  society  of  the  ninetcentli  century,  — 
what  did  it  consist  of  but  here  and  there  a  few 
microscopic  oases  in  a  vast,  unbroken  wilder- 
ness? The  proportion  of  individuals  capable 
of  intellectual  sympathies  or  refined  inter- 
course, to  the  mass  of  their  contemporaries, 
used  to  be  so  infinitesmal  as  to  be  in  any  broad 
view  of  humanity  scarcely  worth  mentioning. 
One  generation  of  the  world  to-day  represents 
a  crreater  volume  of  intellectual  life  than  anv 
five  centuries  ever  did  before. 

"There  is  still  another  point  I  should 
mention  in  stating  the  grounds  on  which 
nothing  less  than  the  universality  of  the  best 
education  could  now  be  tolerated,"  continued 
Dr.  Leete,  "and  that  is,  the  interest  of  the 
coming  generation  in  having  educated  parents. 
To  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell,  there  are  three 
main  grounds  on  which  our  educational  sys- 
tem rests  :  fn-st,  the  right  of  every  man  to  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  309 

completest  education  the  nation  can  give  him 
on  his  own  account,  as  necessary  to  his  enjoy- 
ment of  himself;  second,  the  right  of  his  fel- 
low-citizens to  have  him  educated,  as  neces- 
sary to  their  enjoyment  of  his  society  ;  third, 
the  right  of  the  unborn  to  be  guaranteed  an 
intelligent  and  refined  parentage." 

I  shall  not  describe  in  detail  what  I  saw  in 
the  schools  that  day.  Having  taken  but  slight 
interest  in  educational  matters  in  my  former 
life,  I  could  offer  few  comparisons  of  interest. 
Next  to  the  fact  of  the  universality  of  the 
higher  as  well  as  the  lower  education,  I  was 
most  struck  with  the  prominence  given  to 
physical  culture,  and  the  fact  that  proficiency 
in  athletic  feats  and  games  as  well  as  in  schol- 
arship had  a  place  in  the  rating  of  the  youth. 

"The  faculty  of  education,"  Dr.  Leete  ex- 
plained, "is  held  to  the  same  responsibility  for 
the  bodies  as  for  the  minds  of  its  charges. 
The  highest  possible  physical,  as  well  as  men- 
tal,   development  of  every  one  is  the  double 


3IO  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

object  of  a  curriculum  which  lasts  from  the  age 
of  six  to  that  of  twenty-one." 

The  magnificent  health  of  the  young  people 
in  the  schools  impressed  m.e  strongly.  l:Ay 
previous  observations,  not  only  of  the  notable 
personal  endowments  of  the  familv  of  my  host, 
but  of  the  people  I  had  seen  in  my  walks 
abroad,  had  alreadv  suij(xested  the  idea  that 
there  must  liave  been  something  like  a  general 
improvement  in  the  physical  standard  of  the 
race  since  my  day,  and  now,  as  I  compared 
these  stalwart  young  men  and  fresh,  vigorous 
maidens  with  the  young  people  I  had  seen 
in  the  schools  of  the  nineteenth  century,  I 
was  moved  to  impart  my  thought  to  Dr.  Leete. 
He  listened   with  great  interest  to  what  I  said. 

"Your  testimony  on  this  point,"  he  declared, 
"  is  invaluable.  We  believe  that  there  has  been 
such  an  improvement  as  you  speak  of,  but  of 
course  it  could  only  be  a  matter  of  theory  with 
us.  It  is  an  incident  of  your  unique  position 
that  you  alone  in  the  world  of  to-day  can  speak 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  311 

with  authority  on    this  point.     Your  opinion, 
when  you  state  it  public!}',  will,  I   assure  you, 
make  a  profound  sensation.     For  the  rest    it 
would  be  strange,   certainly,   if  the   race   did 
not    show     an     improvement.     In    your   day, 
riches  debauched  one  class  with   idleness  of 
mind  and  bodj^  while  povert}'  sapped  the  vital- 
ity of  the  masses  by  overwork,  bad  food,  and 
pestilent  homes.     The  labor  required  of  chil- 
dren, and  the  burdens  laid  on  women,  enfee- 
bled the  very  springs  of  life.     Instead  of  these 
maleficent    circumstances,  all    now    enjoy  the 
most  tavorable  conditions  of  physical  life  ;   the 
young  are  carefully  nurtured  and    studiously 
cared  for ;  the  labor  which  is  required  of  all  is 
limited  to  the  period  of  greatest  bodily  vigor, 
and  is  never  excessive  ;   care  for  one's  self  and 
one's    family,    anxiety    as    to    livelihood,    the 
strain  of  a  ceaseless  battle  for  life  —  all  these 
influences,  which  once  did  so  much  to  wreck 
the  minds  and  bodies  of  men  and  women,  are 
known  no  more.     Certainly,  an  improvement 


312  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

of  the  species  ought  to  follow  such  a  change. 
In  certain  specific  respects  we  know,  indeed, 
that  the  improvement  has  taken  place.  In- 
sanity, for  instance,  which  in  the  nineteenth 
century  was  so  terribly  common  a  product  of 
your  insane  mode  of  life,  has  almost  disap- 
peared, with  its  alternative,  suicide." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  313 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

WE  had  made  an  appointment  to  meet 
the  ladies  at  the  dining-hall  for  dinner, 
after  which,  having  some  engagement,  they 
left  us  sitting  at  table  there,  discussing  our 
wine  and  cigars  with  a  multitude  of  other 
matters. 

"Doctor,"  said  I,  in  the  course  of  our  talk, 
"  morally  speaking,  your  social  system  is  one 
which  I  should  be  insensate  not  to  admire  in 
comparison  with  any  previously  in  vogue  in 
the  world,  and  especially  with  that  of  my  ovvn 
most  unhappy  century.  If  I  were  to  fall  into 
a  mesmeric  sleep  to-night  as  lasting  as  that 
other,  and  meanwhile  the  course  of  time  were 
to  take  a  turn  backward  instead  of  forward, 
and  I  were  to  wake  up  again  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  I  had  told  my  friends  what  I 
had  seen,  they  would  every  one   admit   that 


314  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

your  world  was  a  paradise  of  order,  equity, 
and  felicity.  But  they  were  a  very  practical 
people,  my  contemporaries,  and  after  express- 
ing their  admiration  for  the  moral  beauty  and 
material  splendor  of  the  system,  they  would 
presently  begin  to  cipher  and  ask  how  you  got 
the  money  to  make  every bod}^  so  happy  ;  for 
certainly,  to  support  the  whole  nation  at  a  rate 
of  comfort,  and  even  luxury,  such  as  I  see 
around  me,  must  involve  vastly  greater  wealth 
than  the  nation  produced  in  my  day.  Now, 
while  I  could  explain  to  them  pretty  nearly 
everything  else  of  the  main  features  of  your 
system,  I  should  quite  fail  to  answer  this  ques- 
tion, and  failing  there,  they  would  tell  me,  for 
they  were  very  close  cipherers,  that  I  had 
been  dreaming  ;  nor  would  they  ever  believe 
anything  else.  In  my  day,  I  know  that  the 
total  annual  product  of  the  nation,  although  it 
might  hcive  been  divided  with  absolute  equal- 
ity, would  not  have  come  to  more  than  three 
or   four   hundred   dollars   per   head,   not   very 


LOOKING   BACK W AND.  315 

much  more  than  enough  to  supply  the  necessi- 
sities  of  life  with  few  or  any  of  its  comforts. 
How  is  it  that  you  have  so  much  more  ?  " 

"That  is  a  very  pertinent  question,  Mr. 
West,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "and  I  should  not 
blame  your  friends,  in  the  case  you  supposed, 
if  they  declared  your  story  all  moonshine,  fail- 
ing a  satisfactory  reply  to  it.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion which  I  cannot  answer  exhaustively  at 
any  one  sitting,  and  as  for  the  exact  statistics 
to  bear  out  my  general  statements,  I  shall  have 
to  refer  you  for  them  to  books  in  my  lil)rary, 
but  it  would  certainly  be  a  pity  to  leave  you  to 
be  put  to  confusion  by  your  old  acquaintances, 
in  case  of  the  contingency  you  speak  of,  for 
lack  of  a  few  suggestions. 

"  Let  us  begin  with  a  number  of  small  items 
wherein  w^e  economize  wealth  as  compared 
with  you.  We  have  no  national,  state,  county 
or  municipal  debts,  or  payments  on  their 
account.  We  have  no  sort  of  military  or 
navai  expenditures  for  men  or  materials,  no 


3l6  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

army,  navy,  or  militia.  We  have  no  revenue 
service,  no  swarm  of  tax  assessors  and  collec- 
tors. As  regards  our  judiciary,  police,  sher- 
iffs, and  jailers,  the  force  Vvhich  Massachusetts 
alone  kept  on  foot  in  your  day  far  more  than 
suffices  for  the  nation  now.  We  have  no 
criminal  class  preying  upon  the  wealth  of 
society  as  you  had.  The  number  of  persons, 
more  or  less  absolutely  lost  to  the  working 
force  through  physical  disability,  of  the  lame, 
sick,  and  debilitated,  which  constituted  such  a 
burden  on  the  able-bodied  in  3- our  day,  now 
that  all  live  under  conditions  of  health  and 
comfort,  has  shrunk  to  scarcely  perceptible 
proportions,  and  with  every  generation  is 
becoming  more  completely  eliminated. 

''Another  item  wherein  we  save  is  tl^ie  disuse 
of  money  and  the  thousand  occupations  con- 
nected with  financial  operations  of  all  sorts, 
whereby  an  army  of  men  v;as  formerly  taken 
away  from  useful  employments.  Also  con- 
sider that  the  w^aste  of  the  very  rich  in  your 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  317 

day  on  inordinate  personal  luxury  has  ceased, 
though,  indeed,  this  item  might  easily  be 
over-estimated.  Again,  consider  that  there 
are  no  idlers  now,  rich  or  poor, —  no  drones. 

"  A  very  important  cause  of  former  poverty 
was  the  vast  waste  of  labor  and  materials 
which  resulted  from  domestic  washing  and 
cooking,  and  the  performing  separately  of 
innumerable  other  tasks  to  which  we  apply 
the  co-operative  plan. 

"A  larger  economy  than  any  of  these, — 
yes,  of  all  together, — is  effected  by  the  organ- 
ization of  our  distributing  system,  by  which 
the  work  done  once  by  the  merchants,  traders, 
storekeepers,  with  their  various  grades  of  job- 
bers, wholesalers,  retailers,  agents,  commercial 
travellers,  and  middlemen  of  a  thousand  sorts, 
with  an  excessive  v/aste  of  energy  in  needless 
transportation  and  interminable  handlings,  is 
performed  by  one  tenth  the  number  of  hands 
and  an  unnecessary  turn  of  not  one  wheel. 
Something  of  what  our  distributing  system  is 


3l8  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

like  yon  know.  Our  statisticians  calculate 
that  one  eightieth  part  of  our  workers  suffices 
for  all  the  processes  of  distribution  which  in 
your  day  required  one  eighth  of  the  popula- 
tion, so  much  being  withdrawn  from  the  force 
engaged  in  productive  labor." 

"I  begin  to  see,"  I  said,  "where  you  get 
your  greater  wealth." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  replied  Dr.  Leete, 
"but3-ou  scarcely  do  as  yet.  The  economies 
I  have  mentioned  thus  far,  in  the  aggregate, 
considering  the  labor  they  Vv'ould  save  directly 
and  indirectly  through  saving  of  material, 
might  possibly  be  equivalent  to  the  addition  to 
your  annual  production  of  wealth  of  one-half 
its  former  total.  These  items  are,  however, 
scarcely  worth  mentioning  in  comparison  with 
other  prodigious  wastes,  now  saved,  w^hich 
resulted  inevitably  from  leaving  the  industries 
of  the  nation  to  private  enterprise.  However 
great  the  economies  your  contemporaries  might 
have  devised  in  the  consumption  of  products. 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  319 

and  however  marvellous  the  progress  of  me- 
chanical invention,  they  could  never  have 
raised  themselves  out  of  the  slough  of  poverty 
so  long  as  they  held  to  that  system. 

"  No  mode  more  wasteful  for  utilizing  human 
energy  could  be  devised,  and  for  the  credit  of 
the  human  intellect  it  should  be  remembered 
that  the  system  never  was  devised,  but  was 
merely  a  survival  from  the  rude  ages  when 
the  lack  of  social  organization  made  any  sort 
of  co-operation  impossible." 

"I  will  readily  admit,"  I  said,  "that  our 
industrial  system  was  ethically  very  bad,  but 
as  a  mere  wealth-making  machine,  apart  from 
moral  aspects,  it  seemed  to  us  admirable." 

"As  I  said,"  responded  the  doctor,  "the  sub- 
ject is  too  large  to  discuss  at  length  now,  but 
if  you  are  really  interested  to  know  the  main 
criticisms  which  we  moderns  make  on  your 
industrial  system  as  compared  with  our  own, 
I  can  touch  briefly  on  some  of  them . 

"The  wastes  which   resulted  from    leaving 


320  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

the  conduct  of  industry  to  irresponsible  ia  li- 
viduals,  wholly  without  mutual  understand'  air 
or  concert,  were  mainly  four :  first,  the  wajte 
by  mistaken  undertakings ;  second,  the  waste 
from  the  competition  and  mutual  hostility  of 
those  engaged  in  industry ;  third,  the  waste 
by  periodical  gluts  and  crises,  with  the 
consequent  interruptions  of  industry  ;  fourth, 
the  waste  from  idle  capital  and  labor,  ;-.t  all 
times.  Any  one  of  these  four  great  kaks, 
were  all  the  others  stopped,  would  suffice  to 
make  the  difference  between  wealth  and 
poverty  on  the  part  of  a  nation. 

"  Take  the  waste  by  mistaken  undertal  ings, 
to  begin  with.  In  your  da}'  the  production 
and  distribution  of  commodities  being  without 
concert  or  organization,  there  was  no  means 
of  knowing  just  what  demand  there  was  for 
any  class  of  products,  or  what  was  the  rate  of 
supply.  Therefore",  any  enterprise  by  a  pri- 
vate capitahst  was  always  a  doubtful  experi- 
ment.      The    projector,    having    no    general 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  3 21 

view  of  the  field  of  industry  and  consumption, 
such  as  our  government  has,  could  never  be 
sure  either  what  the  people  wanted,  or  what 
arrangements  other  capitalists  were  making  to 
suppl}^  them.  In  view  of  this,  we  are  not  sur- 
prised to  learn  that  the  chances  were  consid- 
ered several  to  one  in  favor  of  the  failure  of  any 
given  business  enterprise,  and  that  it  was  com- 
mon for  persons  who  at  last  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing a  hit,  to  have  failed  repeatedly.  If  a  shoe- 
maker, for  every  pair  of  shoes  he  succeeded  in 
completing,  spoiled  the  leather  of  four  or  five 
pair,  besides  losing  the  time  spent  on  them,  he 
would  stand  about  the  same  chance  of  getting 
rich  as  your  contemporaries  did  with  their  sys- 
tem of  private  enterprise,  and  its  average  of 
four  or  five  failures  to  one  success. 

"  The  next  of  the  great  wastes  was  that  from 
competition.  The  field  of  industry  was  a  bat- 
tle-field as  wide  as  the  world,  in  which  the 
workers  wasted,  in  assailing  one  another,  ener- 
gies which,  if  expended  in  concerted  effort,  as 


322  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

to-day,  would  have  enriched  all.  As  for  mercy 
or  quarter  in  this  warfare,  there  was  absolutely 
no  suggestion  of  it.  To  deliberately  enter  a 
field  of  business  and  destroy  the  enterprises  of 
those  who  had  occupied  it  previously,  in  order 
to  plant  one's  own  enterprise  on  their  ruins, 
was  an  achievement  which  never  failed  to  com- 
mand popular  admiration.  Nor  is  there  any 
stretch  of  fancy  in  comparing  this  sort  of 
struggle  v/ith  actual  warfare,  so  far  as  con- 
cerns the  mental  agony  and  physical  suffering 
which  attended  the  struggle,  and  the  miser}^ 
which  overwhelmed  the  defeated  and  those 
dependent  on  them.  Now  nothing  about  your 
age  is,  at  first  sight,  more  astounding  to  a  man 
of  modern  times  than  the  fact  that  men  en- 
gaged in  the  same  industry-,  instead  of  frater- 
nizin^jc  as  comrades  and  co-laborers  to  a  com- 
mon  end,  should  have  regarded  each  other  as 
rivals  and  enemies  to  be  throttled  and  over- 
thrown. This  certainly  seems  like  sheer  mad- 
ness, a  scene  from  bedlam.      But  more  closely 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  3 


0-5 


regarded,  it  is  seen  to  be  no  such  thing.    Your 
contemporaries,  with  their  mutual   throat-cut- 
ting, knew  very  well  what  they  were  at.     The 
producers  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  not, 
like   ours,  working  together  for   the    mainte- 
nance of  the  community,  but  each  solely  for 
his    own  maintenance  at    the  expense  of  the 
community.     If,  in  working  to  this  end,  he  at 
the  same  time  increased  the  aggregate  weaUh, 
that  was   merely  incidental.     It   was   just  as 
feasible  and  as  common  to  increase  one's  pri- 
vate   hoard    by    practices     injurious    to    the 
general  welfare.      One's  worst  enemies  were 
necessarily  those  of  his  own  trade,  for,  under 
your  plan  of  making  private  profit  the  motive 
of  production,  a  scarcity  of  the  article  he  pro- 
duced was  what  each  particular  producer  de- 
sired.    It  was  for  his  interest  that  no  more  of 
it  should  be  produced  than  he  himself  could 
produce.      To    secure    this    consummation    as 
far  as  circumstances  permitted,  by  killing  off 
and  discouraging  those  engaged  in  his  line  of 


324  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

Industry,  was  his  constant  eflbrt.  When  he 
liad  killed  ofF  all  he  could,  his  policy  was  to 
combine  with  those  he  could  not  kill,  and  con- 
vert their  mutual  warfare  into  a  warfare  upon 
the  public  at  large  by  cornering  the  market,  as 
I  believe  3^ou  used  to  call  it,  and  putting  up 
prices  to  the  highest  point  people  would  stand 
before  going  without  the  goods.  The  day 
dream  of  the  nineteenth  century  producer  was 
to  gain  absolute  control  of  the  supply  of  some 
necessity  of  life,  so  that  he  might  keep  the 
public  at  the  verge  of  starvation,  and  always 
command  famine  prices  for  what  he  supplied. 
This,  Mr.  West,  is  what  was  called  in  the 
nineteenth  centur}'  a  system  of  production.  I 
will  leave  it  to  you  if  it  does  not  seem,  in  some 
of  its  aspects,  a  great  deal  more  like  a  system 
for  preventing  production.  Some  time  when 
we  have  plenty  of  leisure  I  am  going  to  ask 
you  to  sit  down  with  me  and  try  to  make  me 
comprehend,  as  I  never  yet  could,  though  I 
have   studied  the   matter    a    great    deal,  how 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  325 

such  shrewd  fellows  as  your  contemporaries 
appear  to  have  been  in  many  respects  ever 
came  to  entrust  the  business  of  providing  for 
the  community  to  a  class  whose  interest  it  was 
to  starve  it.  I  assure  you  that  the  wonder  w^th 
us  is  not  that  the  w^orld  did  not  get  rich  under 
such  a  system,  but  that  it  did  not  perish  out- 
rio"ht  from  want.  This  w^onder  increases  as 
we  go  on  to  consider  some  of  the  other  prodig- 
ious wastes  that  characterized  it. 

"  Apart  from  the  waste  of  labor  and  capital 
by  misdirected  industry,'  and  that  from  the 
constant  bloodletting  of  your  industrial  war- 
fare, your  system  was  liable  to  periodical  con- 
vulsions overwhelming  alike  the  wise  and  un- 
wise, the  successful  cut-throat  as  well  as  his 
victim.  I  refer  to  the  business  crises  at  in- 
tervals of  five  to  ten  years,  wdiich  wrecked 
the  industries  of  the  nation,  prostrating  all 
weak  enterprises  and  crippling  the  strongest, 
and  were  followed  by  long  periods,  often  of 
many   years,   of  so-called  dull  times,  during 


326  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

whicli  the  capitalists  slowly  regathered  their 
dissipated  strength  while  the  laboring  classes 
starved  and  rioted.  Then  would  ensue  an- 
other brief  season  of  prosperity,  followed  in 
turn  by  another  crisis  and  the  ensuing  3'ears  of 
exhaustion.  As  commerce  developed,  mak- 
ing the  nations  mutually  dependent,  these 
crises  became  world-wide,  while  the  obstinacy 
of  the  ensuing  state  of  collapse  increased  with 
the  area  affected  by  the  convulsions,  and  the 
consequent  lack  of  rallying  centres.  In  pro- 
portion as  the  industries  of  the  world  multi- 
plied and  became  complex,  and  the  volume  of 
capital  involved  was  increased,  these  business 
catacl3'sms  became  more  frequent  till,  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  centur}',  there 
w^ere  two  years  of  bad  times  to  one  of  good, 
and  the  system  of  industry  never  before  so 
extended  or  so  imposing  seemed  in  danger  of 
collapsing  by  its  own  weight.  After  endless 
discussions,  your  economists  appear  by  that 
time  to   have  settled  down  to   the    despairing 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  327 

conclusion  that  there  was  no  more  possibility 
of  preventing  or  controlling  these  crises  than 
if  they  had  been  drouths  or  hurricanes.  It 
only  remained  to  endure  them  as  necessary 
evils,  and  when  they  had  passed  over  to  build 
up  again  the  shattered  structure  of  industry, 
as  dwellers  in  an  earthquake  country  keep  on 
rebuildinn-  their  cities  on  the  same  site. 

"So  far  as  considering  the  causes  of  the 
trouble  inherent  in  their  industrial  system, 
your  contemporaries  were  certainly  correct. 
They  were  in  its  very  basis,  and  must  needs 
become  more  and  more  maleficent  as  the  busi- 
ness fabric  grew  in  size  and  complexity.  One 
of  these  causes  was  the  lack  of  any  common 
control  of  the  different  industries,  and  the  con- 
sequent impossibility  of  their  orderly  and  co- 
ordinate development.  It  inevitably  resulted 
from  this  lack  that  they  were  continually  get- 
ting out  of  step  with  one  another  and  out  ot 
relation  with  the  demand. 

"  Of  the  latter  there  was  no  criterion  such  as 


328  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

organized  distribution  gives  ns,  and  the  first 
notice  that  it  had  been  exceeded  in  an^'  group 
of  industries  was  a  crash  of  prices,  bankruptcy 
of  producers,  stoppage  of  production,  reduc- 
tion of  wages,  or  discharge  of  workmen. 
This  process  was  constantly  going  on  in  many 
industries,  even  in  what  were  called  good 
times,  but  a  crisis  took  place  only  when  the 
industries  affected  were  extensive.  The  mar- 
kets then  were  glutted  with  goods,  of  which 
nobody  wanted  beyond  a  sufficienc}^  at  any 
price.  The  wages  and  profits  of  those  making 
the  glutted  classes  of  goods  being  reduced  or 
wholly  stopped,  their  purchasing  power  as 
consumers  of  other  classes  of  goods,  of  which 
there  was  no  natural  glut,  was  taken  away, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  goods  of  which  there 
was  no  natural  glut  became  artificially  glutted, 
till  their  prices  also  were  broken  down,  and 
their  makers  thrown  out  of  work  and  deprived 
of  income.  The  crisis  was  by  tliis  time  fairly 
under  way,  and  nothing  could  check  it  till  a 
nation's  ransom  had  been  wasted. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  329 

"A  cause,  also  inherent  in  your  system, 
which  often  produced  and  always  terribly 
aggravated  crises,  was  the  machinery  of 
money  and  credit.  Money  was  essential 
when  production  was  in  man}^  private  hands, 
and  buying  and  selling  was  necessary  to 
secure  what  one  wanted.  It  was,  however, 
open  to  the  obvious  objection  of  substitut- 
ing for  food,  clothing,  and  other  things,  a 
merely  conventional  representative  of  them. 
The  confusion  of  mind  which  this  favored, 
between  goods  and  their  representative,  led 
the  way  to  the  credit  system  and  its  prodig- 
ious illusions.  Already  accustomed  to  accept 
money  for  commodities,  the  people  next  ac- 
cepted promises  for  money,  and  ceased  to  look 
at  all  behind  the  representative  for  the  thing 
represented.  Money  was  a  sign  of  real  com- 
modities, but  credit  was  but  the  sign  of  a  sign. 
There  was  a  natural  limit  to  gold  and  silver, 
that  is,  money  proper,  but  none  to  credit,  and 
the  result  was  that  the  volume  of  credit,  that 


330  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

is,  the  promises  of  money,  ceased  to  bear 
any  ascertainable  proportion  to  the  money, 
still  less  to  the  commodities,  actually  in 
existence.  Under  such  a  system,  frequent  and 
periodical  crises  were  necessitated  by  a  law  as 
absolute  as  that  which  brings  to  the  ground 
a  structure  overhanging  its  centre  of  gravity. 
It  was  one  of  vour  fictions  that  the  p-overnment 
and  the  banks  authorized  by  it  alone  issued 
money  ;  but  everybody  who  gave  a  dollars 
credit  issued  money  to  that  extent,  which  was  as 
good  as  any  to  swell  the  circulation  till  the 
next  crisis.  The  great  extension  of  the  credit 
system  was  a  characteristic  of  the  latter  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  accounts  largely 
for  the  almost  incessant  business  crises  w^hich 
marked  that  period.  Perilous  as  credit  was, 
you  could  not  dispense  with  its  use,  for,  lack- 
ing any  national  or  other  public  organization 
of  the  capital  of  the  country,  it  was  the  only 
means  you  had  for  concentrating  and  directing 
it  upon  industrial  enterprises.     It  was  in  this 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  33I 

way  a  most  potent  means  for  exaggerating  the 
chief  peril  of  the  private  enterprise  system  of 
industry  by  enabling  particular  industries  to 
absorb  disproportionate  amounts  of  the  dis- 
posable capital  of  the  country,  and  thus 
prepare  disaster.  Business  enterprises  were 
always  vastly  in  debt  for  advances  of  credit, 
both  to  one  another  and  to  the  banks  and  cap- 
italists, and  the  prompt  withdrawal  of  this 
credit  at  the  first  sign  of  a  crisis,  was  generally 
the  precipitating  cause  of  it. 

"It  was  the  misfortune  of  your  contemporaries 
that  they  had  to  cement  their  business  fabric 
with  a  material  which  an  accident  might  at 
any  moment  turn  into  an  explosive.  They 
were  in  the  plight  of  a  man  building  a  house 
with  dynamite  for  mortar,  for  credit  can  be 
compared  with  nothing  else. 

"  If  you  Vv'ould  see  how  needless  were  these 
convulsions  of  business  which  I  have  been 
speaking  of,  and  how  entirely  they  resulted 
from  leaving  industry  to  private  and  unorgan- 


23^  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

ized  management,  just  consider  the  working 
of  our  S3'stem.  Over-production  in  special 
lines,  which  was  the  great  hob-goblin  of  your 
day,  is  impossible  now,  for  by  the  connection 
between  distribution  and  production,  supply  is 
geared  to  demand  like  an  engine  to  the  gov- 
ernor which  regulates  its  speed.  Even  sup- 
pose by  an  error  of  judgment  an  excessive 
productipn  of  some  commodit3^  The  conse- 
quent slackening  or  cessation  of  production  in 
that  line  throws  nobody  out  of  emplo3'ment. 
The  suspended  workers  are  at  once  found  occu- 
pation .in  some  other  department  of  the  vast 
workshop  and  lose  only  the  time  spent  in 
changing,  while,  as  for  the  glut,  the  busi- 
ness of  the  nation  is  large  enough  to  carry  any 
amount  of  product  manufactured  in  excess  of 
demand  till  the  latter  overtakes  it.  In  such  a 
case  of  over-production,  as  I  have  supposed, 
there  is  not  with  us,  as  with  you,  any  complex 
machinery  to  get  out  of  order  and  magnif}'  a 
thousand    times    the    original    mistake.      Of 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  333 

course,  having  not  even  money,  we  still  less 
have  credit.  All  estimates  deal  directly  with 
the  real  things,  the  flour,  iron,  wood,  wool,  and 
labor,  of  which  money  and  credit  were  for  you 
the  very  misleading  representatives.  In  our 
calculations  of  cost  there  can  be  no  mis- 
takes. Out  of  the  annual  product  the  amount 
necessary  for  the  support  of  the  people  is  taken, 
and  the  requisite  labor  to  produce  the  next 
year's  consumption  provided  for.  The  residue 
of  the  material  and  labor  represents  what  can  be 
safely  expended  in  improvements.  If  the  crops 
are  bad,  the  surplus  for  that  year  is  less  than 
usual,  that  is  all.  Except  for  slight  occasional 
effects  of  such  natural  causes,  there  are  no  fluc- 
tuations of  business  ;  the  material  prosperity  of 
the  nation  flows  on  uninterruptedly  from  gen- 
eration to  generation,  like  an  ever  broadening 


iver 


.V     " 


and  deepening  r 

"Your  business  crises,  Mr.  West,"  continued 
the  doctor,  "like  either  of  the  great  wastes  I 
mentioned  before,  were  enouHi,  alone,  to  have 


334  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

kept  your  noses  to  the  grindstone  forever ;  but 
I  have  still  to  speak  of  one  other  great  cause 
of  your  poverty,  and  that  was  the  idleness  of 
a  great  part  of  your  capital  and  labor. 
With  us  it  is  the  business  of  the  admin- 
istration to  keep  in  constant  employment 
every  ounce  of  available  capital  and  labor 
in  the  country.  In  your  day  there  was 
no  general  control  of  either  capital  or  labor, 
and  a  large  part  of  both  failed  to  find  employ- 
ment. 'Capital,'  3^ou  used  to  say  'is  natur- 
ally timid,'  and  it  would  certain!}^  have  been 
reckless  if  it  had  not  been  timid  in  an  epoch 
when  there  was  a  large  preponderance  of 
probability  that  any  particular  business  ven- 
ture would  end  in  failure.  There  was  no  time 
when,  if  security  could  have  been  guaran- 
teed it,  the  amount  of  capital  devoted  to  pro- 
ductive industr}^  could  not  have  been  greatly 
increased.  The  proportion  of  it  so  emplo3^ed 
underweni  constant  extraordinary  fluctuations, 
according   to  the  greater    or  less    feeling  of 


LOOtClNG  BACKWARD,  335 

uncertainty  as  to  the  stability  of  the  industrial 
situation,  so  that  the  output  of  the  national 
industries  greatly  varied  in  different  years. 
But,  for  the  same  reason  that  the  amount  of 
capital  employed  at  times  of  special  insecur- 
ity was  far  less  than  at  times  of  somewhat 
greater  security,  a  very  large  proportion  was 
never  employed  at  all,  because  the  hazard  of 
business  was  always  very  great  in  the  best 
of  times. 

"It  should  be  also  noted  that  the  oreat 
amount  of  capital  always  seeking  employment 
where  tolerable  safety  could  be  insured,  ter- 
ribly embittered  the  competition  between  cap- 
italists when  a  promising  opening  presented 
itself.  The  idleness  of  capital,  the  result  of 
Its  timidity,  of  course  meant  the  idleness  of 
labor  in  corresponding  degree.  Moreover, 
every  change  in  the  adjustments  of  business, 
every  slightest  alteration  in  the  condition  of 
commerce  or  manufactures,  not  to  speak  of  the 
innumerable  business  failures  that  took  place 


33^  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

yearly,  even  in  the  best  of  times,  were  con- 
stantly throwing  a  multitude  of  men  out  of 
employment  for  periods  of  weeks  or  months, 
or  even  years.  A  great  number  of  these  seek- 
ers after  employment  were  constantly  travers- 
ing the  country,  becoming  in  time  profes- 
sional vagabonds,  then  criminals.  *  Give  us 
work  ! '  was  the  cry  of  an  army  of  the  unem- 
ployed at  nearh'  all  seasons,  and  in  seasons  of 
dullness  in  business  this  army  swelled  to  a  host 
so  vast  and  desperate  as  to  threaten  the  stability 
of  the  government.  Could  there  conceivably 
be  a  more  conclusive  demonstration  of  the 
imbecility  of  the  system  of  private  enterprise 
as  a  method  for  enriching  a  nation  than  the 
fact  tliat  in  an  age  of  such  general  poverty 
and  want  of  everything,  capitalists  had  to 
throtde  one  another  to  find  a  safe  chance  to 
invest  their  capital,  and  workmen  rioted  and 
burned  because  they  could  find  no  work  to 
do." 

"Now,  Mr.  West,"  continued  Dr.  Leete,  "I 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  337 

want  you  to  bear  in  mind  that  these  points  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking  indicate  only  neg- 
atively the  advantages  of  the  national  organiz- 
ation of  industry  by  showing  certain  fatal 
defects  and  prodigious  imbecilities  of  the  sys- 
tems of  private  enterprise  which  are  not  found 
in  it.  These  alone,  you  must  admit,  would 
pretty  well  explain  why  the  nation  is  so  much 
richer  than  in  your  day.  But  the  larger  half 
of  our  advantage  over  you,  the  positive  side 
of  it,  I  have  yet  barely  spoken  of.  Supposing 
the  system  of  private  enterprise  in  industry 
were  without  any  of  the  great  leaks  I  have 
mentioned ;  that  there  were  no  waste  on 
account  of  misdirected  effort  growing  out  of 
mistakes  as  to  the  demand,  and  inability  to 
command  a  general  view  of  the  industrial  field. 
Suppose,  also,  there  w^ere  no  neutralizing  and 
duplicating  of  effort  from  competition.  Sup- 
pose, also,  there  were  no  waste  from  busi- 
ness panics  and  crises  through  bankruptcy 
and  long  interruptions  of  industry,   and    also 


338  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

none  from  the  idleness  of  capital  and  labor. 
Supposing  these  evils,  whicli  are  essential  to 
the  conduct  of  industry  by  capital  in  private 
hands,  could  all  be  miraculously  prevented, 
and  the  system  yet  retained ;  even  then  the 
superiority  of  the  results  attained  by  the 
modern  industrial  system  of  national  control 
would  remain  overwhelming. 

"  You  used  to  have  some  pretty  large  textile 
manufacturing  establishments,  even  in  your 
day,  although  not  comparable  with  ours.  No 
doubt  you  have  visited  these  great  mills  in 
vour  time,  covering  acres  of  ground,  emplo}'- 
ing  thousands  of  hands,  and  combining  under 
one  roof,  under  one  control,  the  hundred  dis- 
tinct processes  between,  say,  the  cotton  bale 
and  the  bale  of  glossy  calicoes.  You  have 
admired  the  vast  economy  of  labor  as  of  me- 
chanical force  resulting  from  the  perfect  inter- 
working  with  the  rest,  of  ever}^  wheel  and 
every  hand.  No  doubt  you  have  reflected  how 
much  less  the  same  force  of  workers  employed 


LOOKING  BACK  WARD.  339 

in  that  factory  would  accomplish  if  they  were 
scattered,  each  man  working  independently. 
Would  you  think  it  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
the  utmost  product  of  those  workers,  working 
thus  apart,  however  amicable  their  relations 
might  be,  was  increased  not  merely  by  a  per- 
centage, but  many  fold,  when  their  efforts 
were  organized  under  one  control?  AVell  now, 
Mr.  West,  the  organization  of  the  industry  of 
the  nation  under  a  single  control,  so  that  all  its 
processes  interlock,  has  multiplied  the  total 
product  over  the  utmost  that  could  be  done 
under  the  former  system,  even  leaving  out  of 
account  the  four  great  wastes  mentioned,  in 
the  same  proportion  that  the  product  of  those 
mill-workers  was  increased  by  co-operation. 
The  effectiveness  of  the  working  force  of  a  na- 
tion, imder  the  myriad-headed  leadership  of 
private  capital,  even  if  the  leaders  were  not 
mutual  enemies,  as  compared  with  that  which 
it  attains  under  a  single  head,  may  be  likened 
to  the  military  efficiency  of  a  mob,  or  a  horde 


340  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

of  barbarians  with  a  thousand  petty  chiefs,  as 
compared  vv'ith  that  of  a  disciplined  army  under 
one  general — such  a  fighting  machine,  for 
example,  as  the  German  army  in  the  time  of 
Von  Moltke." 

"After  what  you  have  told  m.e,"  I  said, 
''I  do  not  so  much  wonder  that  the  nation  is 
richer  now  than  then,  but  that  you  are  not  all 
Croesuses." 

"Well,"  replied  Dr.  Leete,  "we  are  pretty 
well  off.  The  rate  at  which  we  live  is  as  lux- 
urious as  we  could  wish.  The  rivalry  of 
ostentation,  which  in  your  day  led  to  extrava- 
gance in  no  way  conducive  to  comfort,  finds 
no  place,  of  course,  in  a  societ}^  of  people 
absolutely  equal  in  resources,  and  our  ambition 
stops  at  the  surroundings  which  minister  to  the 
enjoyment  of  life.  We  might,  indeed,  have 
much  larger  incomes,  individually,  if  we 
chose  so  to  use  the  surplus  of  our  product, 
but  we  prefer  to  expend  it  upon  public  works 
and  pleasures  in  which  all  share,  upon  public 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  34 1 

halls  and  buildings,  art  galleries,  bridges,  stat- 
uary, means  of  transit,  and  the  conveniences 
of  our  cities,  great  musical  and  theatrical  exhi- 
bitions, and  in  providing  on  a  vast  scale  for 
the  recreations  of  the  people.  You  have  not 
begun  to  see  how  we  live  yet,  Mr.  West.  At 
home  we  have  comfort,  but  the  splendor  of 
our  life  is,  on  its  social  side,  that  which  we 
share  with  our  fellows.  When  you  know 
more  of  it  you  will  see  where  the  money 
goes,  as  you  used  to  say,  and  I  think  you  will 
agree  that  we  do  well  so  to  expend  it." 

"I  suppose,"  observed  Dr.  Leete,  as  we 
strolled  homeward  from  the  dining  hall, 
"  that  no  reflection  would  have  cut  the  men  of 
your  wealth-Vv'orshipping  century  more  keenly 
than  the  suggestion  that  they  did  not  know 
how  to  make  money.  Nevertheless,  that  is 
just  the  verdict  history  has  passed  on  them. 
Their  system  of  unorganized  and  antagonistic 
industries,  was  as  absurd  economically  as  it  was 
morally   abominable.     Selfishness    was    their 


342  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

only  science,  and  in  industrial  production, 
sellishness  is  suicide.  Competition,  which  is 
the  instinct  of  sellishness,  is  another  word  for 
dissipation  of  energy,  while  combination  is  the 
secret  of  efficient  production,  and  not  till  the 
idea  of  increasincv-  the  individual  hoard  oivcs 
place  to  the  idea  of  increasing  the  common 
stock,  can  industrial  combination  be  realized, 
and  the  acquisition  of  wealth  really  begin. 
Even  if  the  principle  of  share  and  share  alike 
for  all  men  were  not  the  only  humane  and 
rational  basis  for  a  society,  we  should  still 
enforce  it  as  economically  expedient,  seeing 
that  until  the  disintefjratini^  influence  of  self- 
seeking  is  suppressed  no  true  concert  of  indus- 
try is  possible." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  343 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

'T^HAT  evening,  as  I  sat  with  Edith  in  the 
-*■  music  room,  listening  to  some  pieces 
in  the  programme  of  that  day  which  had  at- 
tracted my  notice,  I  took  advantage  of  an 
interval  in  the  music  to  say,  "  I  have  a  ques- 
tion to  ask  you  which  I  fear  is  rather  indis- 
creet." 

"  I  am  quite  sure  it  is  not  that,"  she  replied, 
encouragingly. 

"I  am  in  the  position  of  an  eavesdropper,"  I 
continued,  "who,  having  overheard  a  little  of 
a  matter  not  intended  for  him,  though  seeming 
to  concern  him,  has  the  impudence  to  come  to 
the  speaker  for  the  rest." 

"An  eavesdropper!"  she  repeated,  looking 
puzzled. 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  but  an  excusable  one,  as  I 
think  you  will  admit." 


344  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

"This  is  very  mysterious,"  she  repHed. 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "so  mysterious  that  often  I 
have  doubted  whether  I  really  overheard  at 
all  ^vhat  I  am  going  to  ask  you  about,  or  only 
dreamed  it.  I  want  you  to  tell  me.  The 
matter  is  this :  When  I  was  coming  out  of 
that  sleep  of  a  century,  the  first  impression  of 
which  I  was  conscious  was  of  voices  talking 
around  me,  voices  that  at'terwards  I  recog- 
nized as  your  father's,  your  mother's  and  your 
own.  First,  I  remember  your  father's  voice 
saying,  '  He  is  going  to  open  his  eyes.  He 
had  better  see  but  one  person  at  first.'  Then 
you  said,  if  I  did  not  dream  it  all,  ^Promise 
me,  then,  that  3^ou  will  not  tell  him.'  Your 
father  seemed  to  hesitate  about  promising,  but 
you  insisted,  and  your  mother  interposing,  he 
finally  promised,  and  when  I  opened  my  eyes 
I  saw  only  him." 

I  had  been  quite  serious  when  I  said  that  I 
was  not  sure  that  I  had  not  dreamed  the  con- 
versation I  fancied  I  had  overheard,  so  incom- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  345 

prehensible  was  it  that  these  people  should 
know  anything  of  me,  a  contemporary  of  their 
great-grandparents,  which  I  did  not  know  my- 
self. But  when  I  saw  the  effect  of  my  words 
upon  Edith,  I  knew  that  it  was  no  dream,  but 
another  mystery,  and  a  more  puzzling  one 
than  any  I  had  before  encountered.  For  from 
the  moment  that  the  drift  of  my  question 
became  apparent,  she  showed  indications  of 
the  most  acute  embarrassment.  Her  eyes, 
always  so  frank  and  direct  in  expression,  had 
dropped  in  a  panic  before  mine,  while  her  face 
crimsoned  from  neck  to  forehead. 

"Pardon  me,"  I  said,  as  soon  as  I  had 
recovered  from  bewilderment  at  the  extra- 
ordinary effect  of  my  words.  "  It  seems,  then, 
that  I  was  not  dreaming.  There  is  some 
secret,  something  about  me,  which  you  are 
withholding  from  me.  Really,  doesn't  it  seem 
a  little  hard  that  a  person  in  my  position  should 
not  be  given  all  the  information  possible  con- 
cerning himself?  " 


34^  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

"It  does  not  concern  you  —  that  is,  not 
directly.  It  is  not  about  you  —  exactly,"  she 
replied,  scarcely  audibly. 

"But  it  concerns  me  in  some  way,"  I  per- 
sisted. "  It  must  be  something  that  would  in- 
terest me." 

"I  don't  know  even  that,"  she  replied,  ven- 
turing a  momentary  glance  at  my  face,  furi- 
ously blushing,  and  yet  with  a  quaint  smile 
flickering  about  her  lips  which  betrayed  a 
certain  perception  of  humor  in  the  situation 
despite  its  em.barrassment,  —  "I  am  not  sure 
that  it  would  even  interest  you." 

"Your  father  would  have  told  me,"  I  in- 
sisted, with  an  accent  of  reproach.  "It  was 
you  who  forbade  him.  He  thought  I  ought 
to  know." 

She  did  not  reply.  She  was  so  entirely 
charming  in  her  confusion  that  I  was  now 
prompted  as  much  by  the  desire  to  prolong  the 
situation  as  by  my  original  curiosity,  in  im- 
portuning her  further. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  347 

"Am  I  never  to  know?  Will  you  never  tell 
me?"  I  said. 

"It  depends,"  she  answered,  after  a  long 
pause. 

"On  what?"  I  persisted. 

"Ah,  you  ask  too  much,"  she  replied. 
Then,  raising  to  mine  a  face  which  inscrut- 
able eyes,  flushed  cheeks,  and  smiling  lips 
combined  to  render  perfectly  bewitching,  she 
added,  "  What  should  you  think  if  I  said  that 
it  depended  on  —  yourself?  " 

"On  myself?"  I  echoed.  "How  can  that 
possibly  be?  " 

"Mr.  West,  we  are  losing  some  charming 
music,"  was  her  only  reply  to  this,  and  turning 
to  the  telephone,  at  a  touch  of  her  finger  she  set 
the  air  to  swaying  to  the  rhythm  of  an  adagio. 
After  that  she  took  good  care  that  the  music 
should  leave  no  opportunity  for  conversation. 
She  kept  her  face  averted  from  me,  and  pre- 
tended to  be  absorbed  in  the  airs,  but  that  it 
was  a  mere  pretence  the  crimson  tide  standing 
at  flood  in  her  cheeks  sufficiently  betrayed. 


348  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

When  at  length  she  sun-crested  that  I  miirht 
have  heard  all  I  cared  to,  for  that  time,  and 
we  rose  to  leave  the  room,  she  came  straight 
up  to  me  and  said,  without  raising  her  eyes, 
"Mr.  West,  you  say  I  have  been  good  to  you. 
I  have  not  been  particularly  so,  but  if  3^ou  think 
I  have,  I  want  3'ou  to  promise  me  that  you 
will  not  try  again  to  make  me  tell  you  this 
thing  you  have  asked  to-night,  and  that  you 
will  not  try  to  find  it  out  from  any  one  else,  — 
my  father  or  mother,  for  instance." 

To  such  an  appeal  there  was  but  one  reply 
possible.  "Forgive  me  for  distressing  you. 
Of  course  I  will  promise,"  I  said.  "I  would 
never  have  asked  you  if  I  had  fancied  it  could 
distress  you.  But  do  you  blame  me  for  being 
curious  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  blame  you  at  all." 

"  And  some  time,"  I  added,  "  If  I  do  not  tease 
you,  you  may  tell  me  of  your  own  accord. 
May  I  not  hope  so  ?  " 

"Perhaps,"  she  murmured. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  349 

"Only  perhaps?" 

Looking  up  she  read  my  face  with  a  quick 
deepgLance.  "Yes,"  she  said,  "I  think  I  may 
tell  you  —  some  time  ;"  and  so  our  conversation 
ended,  for  she  gave  me  no  chance  to  say  any- 
thing more. 

That  night  I  don't  think  even  Dr.  Pillsbury 
could  have  put  me  to  sleep,  till  toward  morn- 
ing, at  least.     Mysteries  had  been  my  accus- 
tomed food  for  days,  now,  but  none  had  before 
confronted    me  at  once  so  mysterious  and  so 
fascinating  as  this,  the  solution  of  which  Edith 
Leete  had  forbidden  me  even  to  seek.     It  was 
a  double  mystery.     How,  in   the    first  place, 
was  it  conceivable  that  she  should  know  any 
secret    about    me,  a    stranger  from  a   strange 
acre?     In  the  second  place,  even  if  she  should 
know  such  a  secret,  how  account  for  the  agi- 
tating effect  which  the  knowledge  of  it  seemed 
to   have   upon   her?      There    are    puzzles    so 
difficult  that  one  cannot  even  get  so  far  as  a 
conjecture  as  to  the  solution,  and  this  seemed 


350  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

one  of  them.  I  am  usually  of  too  practical 
a  turn  to  waste  time  on  such  conundrums ;  but 
the  difiiculty  of  a  riddle  embodied  in  a  beauti- 
ful young  girl  does  not  detract  from  its  tascina- 
tion.  In  general,  no  doubt,  maiden's  blushes 
may  be  safely  assumed  to  tell  the  same  tale  to 
young  men  in  all  ages  and  races,  but  to  give 
that  interpretation  to  Edith's  crimson  cheeks, 
would,  considering  my  position  and  the  length 
of  time  I  had  known  her,  and  still  more  the 
fact  that  this  mystery  dated  from  before  I  had 
known  her  at  all,  be  a  piece  of  utter  fatuity. 
And  yet  she  was  an  angel,  and  I  should  not 
have  been  a  young  man  if  reason  and  com- 
mon sense  had  been  able  quite  to  banish  a 
roseate  tinge  from  my  dreams  that  night. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  35^ 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

JN  the  morning  I  went  down  stairs  early  in 
1     the  hope  of  seeing  Edith  alone.     In  thus, 
however,  I  was  disappointed.     Not  finding  her 
in  the  house,  I  sought  her  in  the  garden,  but 
she  was  not  there.     In  the  course  of  my  wan- 
derin<.s  I  visited  the   underground    chamber, 
and  sit  down  there  to  rest.     Upon  the  reading 
table  in  the  chamber,  several  periodicals  and 
newspapers  lay,  and  thinking  that  Dr.  Leete 
might  be  interested  in  glancing  over  a  Boston 
daih'  of  1887,  I  brought  one  of  the  papers  with 
me  into  the  house  when  I  came. 

At  breakfast  I  met  Edith.  She  blushed  as 
she  greeted  me,  but  was  perfectly  self-pos- 
,essed.  As  we  sat  at  table.  Dr.  Leete  amused 
himself  with  looking  over  the  paper  I  had 
brought  in.  There  was  in  it,  as  in  all  the 
newspapers  of  that  date,  a  great  deal  about  the 


352  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

labor  troubles,  strikes,  lockouts,  boycotts,  the 
programmes  of  labor  parties,  and  the  wild 
threats  of  the  anarchists. 

"By  the  way,"  said  I,  as  the  doctor  read 
aloud  to  us  some  of  these  items,  "  what  part 
did  the  followers  of  the  red  flacf  take  in  the 
establishment  of  the  new  order  of  thinpfs? 
They  were  making  considerable  noise  the  last 
thing  that  I  knew." 

"  They  had  nothing  to  do  with  it  except  to 
hinder  it,  of  course,"  replied  Dr.  Leete. 
"They  did  that  very  effectually  while  they 
lasted,  for  their  talk  so  disgusted  people  as  to 
deprive  the  best  considered  projects  for  social 
reform  of  a  hearing.  The  subsidizing  of  those 
fellows  was  one  of  the  shrewdest  moves  of 
the  opponents  of  reform." 

"  Subsidizing  them  !  "  I  exclaimed  in  aston- 
ishment. 

"Certainly,"  replied  Dr.  Leete.  "No  his- 
torical authorit}^  nowadays  doubts  that  they 
were  paid  by  the  great  monopolies  to  wave  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  353 

red  flag  and  talk  about  burning,  sacking,  and 
blowing  people  up,  in  order,  by  alarming  the 
timid,  to  head  off  any  real  reforms.  What 
astonishes  me  most  is  that  you  should  have 
fallen  into  the  trap  so  unsuspectingly." 

"  What  are  your  grounds  for  believing  that 
the  red  flag  party  was  subsidized?"  I  in- 
quired. 

"  Wh}'  simply  because  they  must  have  seen 
that  their  course  made  a  thousand  enemies  of 
their  professed  cause  to  one  friend.  Not  to 
suppose  that  they  were  hired  for  the  work  is  to 
credit  them  witJi  an  inconceivable  folly.*  In 
the  United  States,  of  all  countries,  no  party 
could  intelligently  expect  to  carry  its  point 
w^ithout  first  winning  over  to  its  ideas  a  major- 
ity of  the  nation,  as  the  national  party  eventu- 
ally did." 

"The  national  party  !  "  I  exclaimed.     "That 


*  I  fully  admit  the  difficulty  of  accountinij  for  the  course  of  the  anarch, 
ists  on  any  other  theory  than  that  they  were  subsidized  by  the  capital- 
ists, but,  at  the  same  time,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  theory  is  wholly 
erroneous.  It  certainly  was  not  held  at  the  time  by  any  one,  though  it 
may  seem  so  obvious  in  the  retrospect. 


354  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

must  have  arisen  after  my  day.     I  suppose  it 
was  one  of  the  Libor  parties." 

"  Oh  no  !  "  repHed  the  doctor.  "  The  labor 
parties,  as  such,  never  could  have  accom- 
plished anything  on  a  large  or  permanent 
scale.  For  purposes  of  national  scope,  their 
basis  as  merely  class  organizations  was  too 
narrow.  It  was  not  till  a  rearrangement  of 
the  industrial  and  social  S3^stem  on  a  higher 
ethical  basis,  and  for  the  more  efficient  pro- 
duction of  wealth,  was  recognized  as  the  inter- 
est, not  of  one  class,  but  equally  of  all  classes, 
of  rich  and  poor,  cultured  and  ignorant,  old 
and  young,  weak  and  strong,  men  and 
women,  that  there  was  any  prospect  that  it 
w^ould  be  achieved.  Then  the  national  party 
arose  to  carry  it  out  by  political  methods.  It 
probably  took  that  name  because  its  aim 
was  to  nationalize  the  functions  of  production 
and  distribution.  Indeed,  it  could  not  v/ell 
have  had  any  other  name,  for  its  purpose  w^as 
to   realize    the    idea    of    the    nation     with    a 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  355 

grandeur  and  completeness  never  before  con- 
ceived, not  as  an  association  of  men  for  certain 
merely  political  functions  affecting  their  hap- 
piness only  remotely  and  superficially,  but 
as  a  family,  a  vital  union,  a  common  life, 
a  mighty  heaven-touching  tree  whose  leaves 
are  its  people,  fed  from  its  veins,  and  feeding 
it  in  turn.  The  most  patriotic  of  all  possible 
parties,  it  sought  to  justify  patriotism  and  raise 
it  from  an  instinct  to  a  rational  devotion,  by 
making  the  native  land  truly  a  father  land, 
a  father  who  kept  the  people  alive  and  was  not 
merely  an  idol  for  which  they  were  expected 
to  die." 


35^  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

^T^HE  personality  of  Edith  Leete  had  natur- 
•^  ally  impressed  me  strongly. ever  since  I 
had  come,  in  so  strange  a  manner,  to  be  an 
inmate  of  her  father's  house,  and  it  was  to  be 
expected  that  aQer  what  had  happened  the 
night  previous,  I  should  be  more  than  ever 
preoccupied  with  thoughts  of  her.  From  the 
first  I  had  been  struck  with  the  air  of  serene 
frankness  and  ingenuous  directness,  more  like 
that  of  a  noble  and  innocent  boy  than  anv  girl 
I  had  ever  known,  which  characterized  her. 
I  was  curious  to  know  how  far  this  charming 
quality  might  be  peculiar  to  herself,  and  how 
far  possibly  a  result  of  alterations  in  the  social 
position  of  women  which  might  have  taken 
place  since  my  time.  Finding  an  opportunity 
that  day,  when  alone  with  Dr.  Leete,  I  turned 
the  conversation  in  tliat  direction. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  357 

"I  suppose,"!  said, ''that  women  nowada3^s, 
having  been  relieved  of  the  burden  of  house- 
work, have  no  employment  but  the  cultivation 
of  their  charms  and  p-races." 

"So  far  as  we  men  are  concerned,"  replied 
Dr.  Leete,  "we  should  consider  that  they  am^- 
ply  paid  their  way,  to  use  one  of  your  forms  of 
expression,  if  they  confined  themselves  to  that 
occupation,  but  you  may  be  very  sure  that 
they  have  quite  too  much  spirit  to  consent  to  be 
mere  beneficiaries  of  society,  even  as  a  return 
for  ornamenting  it.  They  did,  indeed,  wel- 
come their  riddance  from  housev/ork,  because 
that  W' as  not  only  exceptionally  wearing  in  itself 
but  also  wasteful  in  the  extreme,  of  energy, 
as  compared  wdth  the  co-operative  plan  ;  but 
they  accepted  relief  from  that  sort  of  work  only 
that  they  might  contribute  in  otiier  and  niore 
effectual,  as  w^ell  as  more  agreeable  wa3^5,  to  the 
common  vvcal.  Our  w^omen,  as  well  as  our 
men,  are  members  of  the  industrial  arnw,  and 
leave  it  only  w^hen  maternal  duties  claim  them. 


358  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

The  result  is  that  most  women,  at  one  time  or 
another  of  their  lives,  serve  industrially  some 
five  or  ten  or  fifteen  years,  while  those  who 
have  no  children  fill  out  the  full  term." 

"A  woman  does  not,  then,  necessarily  leave 
the  industrial  service  on  marriage?"  I  queried. 

"No  more  than  a  man,"  replied  the  doctor. 
"Why  on  earth  should  she?  Married  women 
have  no  housekeeping  responsibilities  now, 
3'ou  know,  and  a  husband  is  not  a  baby  that  he 
should  be  cared  for." 

"  It  was  thought  one  of  the  most  grievous 
features  of  our  civilization  that  we  required  so 
much  toil  from  women,"  I  said  ;  ^'  but  it  seems 
to  me  you  get  more  out  of  them  than  we  did." 

Dr.  Leete  laughed.  "Indeed  we  do,  just  as 
we  do  out  of  our  men.  Yet  the  Vvomen  of  this 
age  are  very  happy,  and  those  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  unless  contemporary  references 
greatly  mislead  us,  were  very  miserable.  The 
reason  that  women  nowada3's  are  so  much 
more  efficient  co-laborers  with  the  men,  and  at 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  359 

the  same  time  are  so  happy,  is  that,  in  regard 
to  their  work  as  well  as  men's,  we  follow  the 
principle  of  providing  every  one  the  kind  of 
occupation  he  or  she  is  best  adapted  to. 
Women  being  inferior  in  strength  to  men,  and 
further  disqualified  industrially  in  special 
ways,  the  kinds  of  occupation  reserved  for 
them,  and  the  conditions  under  v/hich  they 
pursue  them,  have  reference  to  these  facts. 
The  heavier  sorts  of  work  are  everj/where  re- 
served for  men,  the  lighter  occupations  for 
women.  Under  no  circumstances  is  a  woman 
permitted  to  follow  an}^  employment  not  per- 
fectly adapted,  both  as  to  kind  and  degree  of 
labor,  to  her  sex.  Moreover,  the  hours  of 
women's  work  are  considerably  shorter  than 
those  of  men's,  more  frequent  vacations  are 
granted,  and  the  most  careful  provision  is 
made  for  rest  when  needed.  The  men  of  this 
day  so  w^ell  appreciate  that  they  owe  to  the 
beauty  and  grace  of  women  the  chief  zest  of 
their  lives  and  their  main  incentive  to  effort, 


360  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

that  they  permit  them  to  work  at  all  only 
because  it  is  fully  understood  that  a  certain 
regular  requirement  of  labor,  of  a  sort  adapted 
to  their  powers,  is  well  for  body  and  mind, 
during  the  period  of  maximum  physical  vigor. 
We  believe  that  the  magnificent  health  which 
distinguislies  our  women  from  those  of  your 
day,  who  seem  to  have  been  so  generally 
sickh^,  is  owing  largely  to  the  fact  that  all 
alike  are  furnished  with  healthful  and  inspir- 
iting occupation." 

"  I  understood  you,"  I  said,  "  that  the  women- 
workers  belong  to  the  army  of  industry,  but 
how  can  they  be  under  the  same  system  of 
ranking  and  discipline  with  the  men  when 
the  conditions  of  their  labor  are  so  different." 

"They  are  under  an  entirely  different  disci- 
pline," replied  Dr.  Leete,  "and  constitute 
rather  an  allied  force  tlian  an  integral  part  of 
the  arm}'  of  the  men.  They  liave  a  woman 
general-in-chief  and  are  under  exclusively 
feminine   regime.       This  general,  as  also  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  361 

higher  officers,  is  chosen  by  the  body  of 
women  who  have  passed  the  time  of  service, 
in  correspondence  with  the  manner  in  which 
the  chiefs  of  the  masculine  arm}'  and  the 
president  of  the  nation  are  elected.  The 
general  of  the  women's  army  sits  in  the  cabi- 
net of  the  president  and  has  a  veto  on  meas- 
ures respecting  women's  work,  pending  appeals 
to  Congress.  I  should  have  said,  in  speaking 
of  the  judiciary,  that  we  have  women  on  the 
bench,  appointed  by  the  general  of  the  women, 
as  well  as  men.  Causes  in  which  both  parties 
are  women  are  determined  by  women  judges, 
and  where  a  man  and  a  woman  are  parties  to 
a  case,  a  judge  of  either  sex  must  consent  to 
the  verdict." 

"Womanhood  seems  to  be  organized  as  a 
sort  of  iiii^criiun  in  im^crio  in  your  S3'stem," 
I  said. 

''To  some  extent,"  Dr.  Leete  replied;  "but 
t!:e  inner  impcriuni  is  one  from  which  you 
will  admit  there  is  not  likely  to  be  much  dan- 


362  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

ger  to  the  nation.  The  lack  of  some  such 
recognition  of  the  distinct  individuahty  of  the 
sexes  Vv'as  one  of  the  innumerable  defects  of 
your  society.  The  passional  attraction  be- 
tween men  and  women  has  too  often  prevented 
a  perception  of  the  profound  differences  which 
make  the  members  of  each  sex  in  many  things 
strange  to  the  other,  and  capable  of  s^mipathy 
only  with  their  own.  It  is  in  giving  full  play 
to  the  differences  of  sex  rather  than  in  seek- 
ing to  obliterate  them,  as  was  apparently  the 
eflbrt  of  some  reformers  in  your  day,  that  the 
enjoyment  of  each  by  itself,  and  the  piquancy 
which  each  has  for  the  other,  are  alike  en- 
hanced. In  your  day  there  was  no  career  for 
women  except  in  an  unnatural  rivalry  with  men. 
We  have  given  them  a  world  of  their  own  with 
its  emulations,  ambitions,  and  careers,  and  I 
assure  you  they  are  very  happy  in  it.  It  seems 
to  us  that  v\'omen  w^ere  more  than  any  other 
class  the  victims  of  your  civilization.  There 
is  somethinir  which,   even  at  this  distance  of 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  363 

time,  penetrates  one  with  pathos  in  the  specta- 
cle of  their  ennuied,  undeveloped  lives,  stunted 
at  marriage,  their  narrow  horizon,  bounded  so 
often,  ph3'sically,  by  the  four  walls  of  home 
and  morally  b}^  a  petty  circle  of  personal 
interests.  I  speak  now  not  of  the  poorer 
classes  who  were  generally  worked  to  death, 
but  also  of  the  well  to  do  and  rich.  From  the 
great  sorrows,  as  well  as  the  petty  frets  of  life, 
they  had  no  refuge  in  the  breez}-  outdoor 
world  of  human  affairs,  nor  any  interests  save 
those  of  the  family.  Such  an  existence  would 
have  softened  men's  brains  or  driven  them 
mad.  All  that  is  changed  to-day.  No  woman 
is  heard  nowadays  w^ishing  she  were  a  man, 
nor  parents  desiring  boy  rather  than  girl  child- 
ren. Our  girls  are  as  full  of  ambition  for 
their  careers  as  our  boys.  Marriage,  when  it 
comes,  does  not  mean  incarceration  for  them, 
nor  does  it  separate  them  in  any  way  from  the 
larger  interests  of  society,  the  bustling  life  of 
the  world.    Only  when  maternity  fills  a  woman's 


3^4  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

mind  with  new  interests  docs  she  withdraw 
from  the  world  for  a  time.  Afterwards,  and  at 
an}'  time,  she  may  return  to  her  place  among 
her  comrades,  nor  need  she  ever  lose  touch 
with  them.  Women  are  a  very  happy  race 
nowadays,  as  com.pared  with  what  they  ever 
were  before  in  the  v»'orld's  history,  and  their 
power  of  giving  happiness  to  men  has  been 
of  course  increased  in  proportion." 

"I  should  imagine  it  possible,"  I  said,  "that 
the   interest  which  grirls  take  in  their  careers 

o 

as  members  of  the  industrial  arm.}'  and  candi- 
dates for  its  distinctions,  m.ight  have  an  effect 
to  deter  them  from  marriage." 

Dr.  Leete  smiled.  "  Have  no  anxiety  on 
that  score,  T^.Ir.  West,''  he  repled.  "The  Cre- 
ator took  ver}'  good  care  tliat  V\d:iatever  other 
modifications  the  dispositions  of  men  and  women 
might  with  time  take  on,  their  .attraction  for 
each  other  should  rem^ain  constant.  The  mere 
fact  that  in  an  age  like  yours  when  the  struggle 
for  existence  must  have  left  people  little  time 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  365 

for  other  thoughts,  and  the  future  was  so 
uncertain  that  to  assume  parental  responsibili- 
ties must  have  often  seemed  like  a  criminal 
risk,  there  was  even  then  marrvini^  and  c^ivin^ 
in  marriage,  should  be  conclusive  on  this  point. 
As  for  love  nowadays,  one  of  our  authors  says 
that  the  vacuum  left  in  the  minds  of  men  and 
women  by  the  absence  of  care  for  one's  live- 
lihood, has  been  entirely  taken  up  by  the  ten- 
der passion.  That,  however,  I  1)egyou  to  be- 
lieve, is  something  of  an  exaggeration.  For  the 
rest,  so  far  is  marriage  from  being  an  interfer- 
ence with  a  woman's  career  that  the  higher 
positions  in  the  feminine  arm}^  of  industry 
are  intrusted  only  to  women  who  have  been 
both  wives  and  mothers,  as  they  alone  fully 
represent  their  sex." 

"Are  credit  cards  issued  to  the  women  just 
as  to  the  men  ?  " 

"Certainly." 

"The  credits  of  the  women  I  suppose 
are    for  smaller  sums,  owing  to  the   frequent 


o 


66  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


suspension  of  their  labor  on  account  of  family 
responsibilities." 

"Smaller!"  exclaimed  Dr.  Leete,  "  O,  no! 
The  maintenance  of  all  our  people  is  the  same. 
There  are  no  exceptions  to  that  rule,  but 
if  an}'  difference  were  made  on  account  of 
the  interruptions  you  speak  of,  it  would  be  by 
making  the  woman's  credit  larger,  not  smaller. 
Can  you  think  of  any  service  constituting  a 
stronger  claim  on  the  nation's  gratitude  than 
bearing  and  nursing  the  nation's  children? 
According  to  our  view,  none  deserve  so  well 
of  the  world  as  good  parents.  There  is  no 
task  so  unselfish,  so  necessarily  without  return, 
though  the  heart  is  well  rewarded,  as  the 
nurture  of  the  children  who  are  to  make  the 
world  for  one  another  when  we  are  gone." 

"  It  would  seem  to  follow,  from  what  you 
have  said,  that  wives  are  in  no  way  depend- 
ent on  their  husbands  for  maintenance." 

"  Of  course  they  are  not,"  replied  Dr.  Leete, 
"nor    children    on    their  parents    either,    that 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  367 

is,  for  means  of  support,  though  of  course 
they  are  for  the  offices  of  affection.  The 
child's  labor,  wlien  he  grows  up,  will  go 
to  increase  the  common  stock,  not  his  parents', 
who  will  be  dead,  and  therefore  he  is  properly 
nurtured  out  of  the  common  stock.  The 
account  of  every  person,  man,  woman,  and 
child,  you  must  understand,  is  always  with  the 
nation  directly,  and  never  through  any  inter- 
mediary, except,  of  course,  that  parents,  to  a 
certain  extent,  act  for  children  as  their  guard- 
ians. You  see  that  it  is  by  virtue  of  the  rela- 
tion of  individuals  to  the  nation,  of  their  mem- 
bership in  it,  that  they  are  entitled  to  support ; 
and  this  title  is  in  no  way  connected  with  or 
affected  by  their  relations  to  other  individuals 
who  are  fellow  .members  of  the  nation  with 
them.  That  any  person  should  be  dependent 
for  the  means  of  support  upon  another,  would 
be  shocking  to  the  moral  sense,  as  well  a 
indefensible  on  any  rational  social  theory. 
What  would  become  of  personal    liberty  and 


368  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

dignity  under  such  an  arrangement?  I  am 
aware  that  }  ou  called  yourselves  free  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  meaning  of  the  word 
could  not  then,  however,  have  been  at  all 
what  it  is  at  present,  or  you  certainl}^  would 
not  have  applied  it  to  a  society  of  which 
nearl}*  every  member  was  in  a  position  of 
galling  personal  dependence  upon  others  as  to 
the  ver}'  means  of  life,  the  poor  upon  the  rich, 
or  employed  upon  emploj'er,  women  upon 
men,  children  upon  parents.  Instead  of  dis- 
tributing the  product  of  the  nation  directly  to 
its  members,  v/hich  v/ould  seem  the  most 
natural  and  obvious  method,  it  would  actually 
appear  that  you  had  given  your  minds  to 
devising  a  plan  of  hand  to  hand  distribution 
involving  the  maximum  of  personal  humiliation 
to  ail  classes  of  recipients. 

"As  regards  the  dependence  of  women  upon 
men  for  support,  v/hich  then  was  usual,  of 
course  natural  attraction  in  case  of  mar- 
riages of  love  may  often  have  made  it  endura- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  369 

ble,  though  for  spirited  women  I  should  fancy 
it  must  always  have  remained  humiliating. 
What,  then,  must  it  have  been  in  the  innumer- 
able cases  vv^here  women,  with  or  without 
the  form  of  marriage,  had  to  sell  them.selves 
to  men  to  P"et  their  livincc  ?  Even  your  contem- 
poraries,  callous  as  they  v/ere  to  most  of  the 
revolting  aspects  of  their  society,  seem  to  have 
had  an  idea  that  this  vv^as  not  quite  as  it  should 
be ;  but,  it  was  still  only  for  pity's  sake 
that  they  deplored  the  lot  of  the  v/omen.  It  did 
not  occur  to  them  that  it  was  robbery  as  well 
as  cruelty  when  men  seized  for  themselves  the 
v/hole  product  of  the  v/orld  and  left  vv^omen  to 
beg  and  wheedle  for  their  share.  Why  —  but 
bless  me,  Mr.  West,  I  am  really  running  on  at 
a  remarkable  rate,  just  as  if  the  robbery,  the 
sorrow,  and  the  shame  which  those  poor 
women  endured  were  not  over  a  century  since, 
or  as  if  3'ou  were  responsible  for  Vvhat  you  no 
doubt  deplored  as  much  as  I  do." 

"  I  must  bear  m}"  share  of  responsibility  for 


370  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

the  world  as  It  then  was,"  I  replied.  "All  I 
can  say  in  extenuation  is  that  until  the  nation 
was  ripe  for  the  present  system  of  organized 
production  and  distribution,  no  radical  im- 
provement in  the  position  of  woman  was  pos- 
sible. The  root  of  her  disability,  as  you  say, 
was  her  personal  dependence  upon  m.an  for  her 
livelihood,  and  I  can  imagine  no  other  mode  of 
social  organization  than  that  3'ou  have  adopted 
which  would  have  set  woman  free  of  man,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  set  men  free  of  one  an- 
other. I  suppose,  b}"  the  way,  that  so  entire  a 
change  in  the  position  of  women  cannot  have 
taken  place  without  affecting  in  marked  wa3^s 
the  social  relations  of  the  sexes.  That  will  be 
a  very  interesting  study  for  me." 

"  The  change  you  will  observe,"  said  Dr. 
Leete,  "will  chief!}'  be,  I  think,  the  entire 
frankness  and  unconstraint  which  now  charac- 
terizes those  relations,  as  compared  with  the 
artificialty  which  seems  to  have  marked  them 
in  your  time.     The  sexes  now  meet  Vvith  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  37 1 

ease  of  perfect  equals,  suitors  to  each  other  for 
nothing  but  love.  In  your  time  the  fact  that 
women  were  dependent  for  support  on  men, 
made  the  woman  in  reality  the  one  chiefly 
benefited  by  marriage.  This  fact,  so  far  as 
we  can  judge  from  contemporary  records, 
appears  to  have  been  coarsely  enough  recog- 
nized among  the  lower  classes,  while  among 
the  more  polished  it  was  glossed  over  by  a 
system  of  elaborate  conventionalities  which 
aimed  to  carry  the  precisely  opposite  meaning, 
namely,  that  the  man  was  the  party  chiefly 
benefited.  To  keep  up  this  convention  it  was 
essential  that  he  should  alwa3's  seem  the  suitor. 
Nothing  was  therefore  considered  more  shock- 
ing to  the  proprieties  than  that  a  woman 
should  betra}'  a  fondness  for  a  man  before  he 
had  indicated  a  desire  to  marry  her.  Wlw, 
we  actually  have  in  our  libraries  books,  by 
authors  of  your  day,  written  for  no  other  pur- 
pose than  to  discuss  the  question  whether, 
under     any     conceivable      circumstances,     a 


372  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

woman  might,  witliout  discredit  to  her  sex, 
reveal  an  unsolicited  love.  All  this  seems 
exquisitely  absurd  to  us,  and  yet  we  knov\^ 
that,  given  your  circumstances,  tlie  problem 
miglit  have  a  serious  side.  When  for  a 
woman  to  proffer  her  love  to  a  man  was  in 
effect  to  invile  liim  to  assume  the  burden  of 
her  support,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  pride  and 
delicac}'  might  well  have  checked  the  prompt- 
incTs  cf  the  heart.  When  vou  jjo  out  into  our 
society,  Mr.  W^est,  you  must  be  prepared  to  be 
often  cross-questioned  on  this  point  b}-^  our 
3'oung  people,  who  are  naturally  much  inter- 
ested in  tliis  aspect  of  old-fashioned  man- 
ners.     • 

"  And  so  the  girls  of  tlie  twentieth  century 
tell  their  love." 

"If  they  choose,"  replied  Dr.  Leete. 
"There    is    no    more    pretence  of  a    conceal- 

*I  may  sav  tliat  Dr.  Lcctc's  -wnrnirig^  lias  been  fully  justified  hy  my 
experience.  TIic  nmount  and  intensity  of  amusement  wliich  llie  young- 
people  of  this  day,  and  the  young  women  especially,  are  ab'c  to  extract 
f;oni  wh.at  they  arc  pleased  to  call  the  oddities  of  courtship  in  the  nine- 
teen Ji  century,  appear  unlimited. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  373 

ment  of  feeling  on  their  part  than  on  the  part 
of  their  lovers.  Coquetr}^  would  be  as  much 
despised  in  a  girl  as  in  a  man.  Affected  cold- 
ness, which  in  your  day  rarely  deceived  a 
lover,  would  deceive  him  wholly  now,  for  no 
one  thinks  of  practicing  it." 

"One  result  wdiich  must  follow  from  the 
independence  of  women,  I  can  see  for  myself," 
I  said.  "There  can  be  no  marriages  now, 
except  those  of  inclination." 

"  That  is  a   matter  of  course,"  replied  Dr. 

Leete. 

"Think  of  a  world  in  which  there  are 
nothing  but  matches  of  pure  love!  Ah,  me, 
Dr.  Leete,  how  far  you  are  from  being  able  to 
understand  what  an  astonishing  phenomenon 
such  a  world  seems  to  a  man  of  the  nineteenth 
century  ! " 

"  I  can,  however,  to  some  extent,  im.agine  it," 
replied  the  doctor.  "But  the  fact  you  cele- 
brate, that  there  arc  nothing  but  love  matches, 
means  even  more,  perhaps,  than  you  probably 


374  LOOKING    BACKWARD. 

at  first  realize.  It  means  that  for  the  first  time 
in  human  history  the  principle  of  sexual  selec- 
tion, Avith  its  tendency  to  preserve  and  transmit 
the  better  types  of  the  race,  and  let  the  inferior 
types  drop  out,  has  unhindered  operation. 
The  necessities  of  poverty,  the  need  of  having 
a  home,  no  longer  tempt  women  to  accept  as 
the  fathers  of  their  children  men  whom  they 
neither  can  love  nor  respect.  Wealth  and 
rank  no  longer  divert  attention  from  personal 
qualities.  Gold  no  longer  '  gilds  the  straitened 
forehead  of  the  fool.'  The  gifts  of  person, 
mind,  and  disposition,  beauty,  wat,  eloquence, 
kindness,  generosity,  geniality,  courage,  are 
sure  of  transmission  to  posterit}^  Every  gen- 
eration is  sifted  through  a  little  finer  mesh  than 
the  last.  The  attributes  that  human  nature 
admires  are  preserved,  those  that  repel  it  are 
left  behind.  There  are,  of  course,  a  great 
many  women  who  with  love  must  mingle 
admiiration,  and  seek  to  wed  greatly,  but  these 
not   the   less  obey  the  same  law,  for  to  wed 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  375 

greatly  now  is  not  to  marry  men  of  fortune  or 
title,  but  those  wlio  have  risen  above  their  fel- 
lows by  the  solidity  or  brilliance  of  their  ser- 
vices to  humanity.  These  form  nowadays  the 
only  aristocracy  with  which  alliance  is  distinc- 
tion. 

"You  were    speaking,    a  day    or  two    ago, 
of  the  physical    superiority  of  our   people  to 
your  contemporaries.     Perhaps    more    impor- 
tant than  any  of  the  causes  I  mentioned  then 
as    tending  to  race  purification,   has  been  the 
effect  of  untrammelled  sexual  selection  upon 
the  quality  of  two  or  three  successive  genera- 
tions.    I    believe   that    v/hen    you  have  made 
a  fuller   study  of  our  people  you  will  find  in 
them  not  only   a  physical,  but  a  mental    and 
moral  improvement.     It  would  be  strange  if  it 
were    not    so,    for.  not    only    is    one     ot     the 
great    laws    of    nature     now    freely   working 
out   the    salvadon    of    the    race,    but    a    pro- 
found moral    sentiment  has    come    to  its  sup- 
port.    Individualism,  which  in  your  day  was 


37^  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

the  animating  idea  of  society,  not  only  was 
fatal  to  an}'  vital  sentiment  of  brotherhood  and 
common  interest  among  living  men,  but 
equall}'  to  any  realization  of  the  responsibility 
of  the  livinij  for  the  ^feneration  to  follow.  To- 
day  this  sense  of  responsibility,  practically 
unrecognized  in  all  previous  ages,  has  become 
one  of  the  great  ethical  ideas  of  the  race,  rein- 
forcing, Vvith  an  intense  conviction  of  duty,  the 
natural  impulse  to  seek  in  marriage  the  best 
and  noblest  of  the  other  sex.  The  result  is, 
that  not  all  the  encouragements  and  incentives 
of  every  sort  which  we  have  provided  to  de- 
velop industr}',  talent,  genius,  excellence  of 
v^^hatever  kind  are  comparable  in  their  effect 
on  our  3'oung  men  with  the  fact  that  our 
women  sit  aloft  as  judges  of  the  race  and 
reserve  themselves  to  reward  the  winners. 
Of  all  the  whips,  and  spurs,  and  baits,  and 
prizes,  there  is  none  like  tb.e  thought  of  the 
radiant  faces,  which  the  laggards  will  find 
averted. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  377 

*^  Celibates  nowadays  are  almost  invariably 
men  who  have  failed  to  acquit  themselves 
creditably  in  the  work  of  life.  The  woman 
must  be  a  courageous  one,  with  a  very  evil 
sort  of  courage,  too,  whom  pity  for  one  of 
these  unfortunates  should  lead  to  defy  the 
opinion  of  her  generation  —  for  otherwise  she 
is  free  —  so  far  as  to  accept  him  for  a  liusband. 
I  should  add  that,  more  exacting  and  difficult 
to  resist  than  any  other  element  in  that  opin- 
ion, she  Vv^ould  find  the  sentiment  of  her  own 
sex.  Our  women  have  risen  to  the  full  height 
of  their  responsibilit}^  as  the  wardens  of  the 
world  to  come,  to  whose  keeping  the  keys  of  the 
future  are  confided.  Their  feeling  of  duty  in 
this  respect  amounts  to  a  sense  of  religious 
consecration.  It  is  a  cult  in  Vv'hichx  they  edu- 
cate their  daughters  from  childhood." 

After  going  to  ni}^  room  that  nigh.t,  I  sat  up 
late  to  read  a  romance  of  Berrian,  hr.nded  me 
by  Dr.  Leete,  the  plot  of  which  turned  on  a 
situation  suggested  by  his  last  words,  concern- 


37^  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

ing  the  modern  view  of  parental  responsibility. 
A  similar  situation  would  alm.ost  certainly  have 
been  treated  by  a  nineteenth  century  romancist 
so  as  to  excite  the  morbid  sympathy  of  the 
reader  with  the  sentimental  sellishness  of  the 
lovers,  and  his  resentment  towards  the  unwrit- 
ten law  which  the}'  outraged.  I  need  not 
describe  —  for  who  has  not  read  "  Ruth 
Elton"?  —  how  different  is  the  course  which 
Berrian  takes,  and  with  what  tremendous 
effect  he  enforces  the  principle  which  he 
states  :  "  Over  the  unborn  our  power  is  that 
of  God,  and  our  responsibility  like  his  towards 
us.  As  we  acquit  ourselves  toward  them,  so 
let  Him  deal  with  us." 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  379 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

T  THINK  if  a  person  were  ever  excusable  for 
losing  track  of  the  days  of  the  week,  the  cir- 
cumstances excused  me.  Indeed,  if  I  had 
been  told  that  the  method  of  reckoning  time 
had  been  wholly  changed  and  the  days  were 
now  counted  in  lots  of  five,  ten,  or  fifteen 
instead  of  seven,  I  should  have  been  in  no  way 
surprised  after  what  I  had  already  heard  and 
seen  of  the  twentieth  century.  The  first  time 
that  any  inquiry  as  to  the  days  of  the  week  oc- 
curred to  me,  was  the  morning  following  the 
conversation  related  in  the  last  chapter.  At 
the  breakfast  table  Dr.  Leete  asked  me  if 
1  would  care  to  hear  a  sermon. 

"Is  it  Sunday,  then?"  I  exclaimed. 

"Yes,"  he  replied.  "It  was  Friday  of  last 
week  you  see  when  we  made  the  lucky  dis- 
covery of  the    buried  chamber   to  which  we 


380  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


owe  your  society  this  morning.  It  was  Satur- 
day morning  soon  after  midnight  that  you  first 
awoke,  and  Sunday  afternoon  when  you  awoke 
the  second  time  with  facuhies  full}-^  regained.'* 

"  So  you  still  have  Sundays  and  sermons," 
I  said.  ^'We  had  prophets  who  foretold  that 
loni^-  before  this  time  the  world  w^ould  liave 
dispensed  with  both.  I  am  very  curious  to 
know  hovv^  the  ecclesiastical  systems  fit  in  with 
the  rest  of  your  social  arrangem.ents.  I  sup- 
pose 3^ou  have  a  sort  of  national  church  w-ith 
official  clergj-men." 

Dr.  Leete  laughed,  and  Mrs.  Leete  and 
Edith  seemed  greatly  amused. 

"Why  Mr.  West,"  Edith  said,  '^vhat  odd 
people  you  must  think  us.  You  were  quite 
done  with  national  religious  establishm.ents  in 
the  nineteenth  centur}- ,  and  did  you  fancy  we 
had  gone  back  to  them?" 

"  But  hovv^  can  voluntary  churches  and  an 
unofiicial  clerical  profession  be  reconciled  with 
national  owmership  of  all  buildings,  and  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  381 

industrial    service    required    of    all    men?"    I 
answered. 

"  The  religious  practices  of  the  people  have 
naturally  changed  considerably  in  a  century," 
replied  Dr.  Leete ;  "but  supposing  them  to 
have  remained  unchanged,  our  social  system 
would  accommodate  them  perfectly.  The 
nation  supplies  any  person  or  number  of  per- 
sons with  buildings  on  guarantee  of  the  rent, 
and  they  remain  tenants  while  they  pay  it.  As 
for  the  clergymen,  if  a  number  of  persons  wish 
the  services  of  an  individual  for  any  particu- 
lar end  of  their  own,  apart  from  the  general 
service  of  the  naUon,  they  can  always  secure 
it,  with  that  individual's  own  consent  of  course, 
just  as  we  secure  the  service  of  our  editors, 
by  contributing  from  their  credit-cards  an 
indemnity  to  the  nation  for  the  loss  of  his 
services  in  general  industry.  This  indemnity 
paid  the  nation  for  the  individual,  answers  to 
the  salary  in  your  day  paid  to  the  individual 
himself;  and  the  various  applications  of  this 


382  LOOKING  BACKWAnD, 

principle  leave  private  initiative  full  play  in 
all  details  to  which  national  control  is  not 
applicable.  Now  as  to  hearing  a  sermon 
to-day,  if  you  wish  to  do  so,  you  can  either  go 
to  a  church  to  hear  it  or  stay  at  home." 
"How  am  I  to  hear  it  if  I  stay  at  home?" 
"Simply  by  accompanying  us  to  the  music 
room  at  the  proper  hour,  and  selecting  an  easy 
chair.  There  are  some  who  still  prefer  to 
hear  sermons  in  church,  but  most  of  our 
preaching,  like  our  musical  performances,  is 
not  in  public,  but  delivered  in  accoustically 
prepared  chambers,  connected  by  wire  with 
subscribers'  houses.  If  you  prefer  to  go  to  a 
church  I  shall  be  glad  to  accompany  you,  but 
I  really  don't  believe  you  are  likely  to  hear 
anywhere  a  better  discourse  than  you  will  at 
home.  I  see  by  the  paper  that  Mr.  Barton  is 
to  preach  this  morning,  and  he  preaches  only 
by  telephone,  and  to  audiences  often  reaching 
150,000." 

"The  novelty  of  the  experience  of  hearing  a 


LOOKING  BACkWAiiD.  383 

sermon  under  such  circumstances  would  in- 
cline me  to  be  one  of  Mr.  Barton's  hearers,  if 
no  other  reason,"  I  said. 

An  hour  or  two  later,  as  I  sat  reading  in  the 
library,  Edith  came  for  me,  and  I  followed  her 
to  the  music  room,  where  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Leete 
were  waiting.  We  had  not  more  than  seated 
ourselves  comfortabl}^  when  the  tinkle  of  a  bell 
was  heard,  and  a  few  moments  after  the  voice 
of  a  man,  at  the  pitch  of  ordinary  conversation, 
addressed  us,  with  an  effect  of  proceeding 
from  an  invisible  person  in  the  room.  This 
was  what  the  voice  said  : 


"We  have  had  among  us,  during  the  past 
week,  a  critic  from  the  nineteenth  century,  a 
living  representative  of  the  epoch  of  our  great- 
grandparents.  It  would  be  strange  if  a  fact  so 
extraordinary  had  not  somewhat  strongly 
affected  our  imaginations.  Perhaps  most  of 
us    have    been    stimulated    to   some    effort    to 


384  LOOKING  BACKWARI^. 

realize  the  society  of  a  century  ago,  and  figure 
to  ourselves  what  it  must  have  been  like  to 
live  then.  In  inviting  you  now  to  consider 
certain  reflections  upon  this  subject  which  have 
occurred  to  me,  I  presume  that  I  shall  rather 
follow  than  divert  the  course  of  your  own 
thoughts." 

Edith  whispered  something  to  her  father  at 
this  point,  to  which  he  nodded  assent  and 
turned  to  me. 

"Mr.  West,"  he  said,  "Edith  suggests  that 
3'ou  ma}^  find  it  slightly  embarrassing  to  listen 
to  a  discourse  on  the  lines  INIr.  Barton  is  lay- 
ing down,  and  if  so,  you  need  not  be  cheated 
out  of  a  sermon.  She  will  connect  us  with 
Mr.  Sweetsers  speaking  room  if  3'ou  say  so, 
and  I  can  still  promise  you  a  very  good  dis- 
course." 

''No  no,"  I  said.  "Believe  me,  I  would 
much  rather  hear  what  Mr.  Barton  has  to 
say." 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  3^5 

"As  you  please,"  replied  my  host. 

When  her  father  spoke  to  me  Edith  had 
touched  a  screw  and  the  voice  of  Mr.  Barton 
had  ceased  abruptly.  Now  at  another  touch 
the  room  was  once  more  filled  with  the  earnest 
sympathetic  tones  which  had  already  im- 
pressed me  most  favorably. 

"  I  venture  to  assume  that  one  effect  has  been 
common  with  us  as  a  result  of  this  effort  at 
retrospection,  and  that  it  has  been  to  leave  us 
more    than    ever    amazed    at    the    stupendous 
change  which  one  brief  century  has  made  in 
the  material  and  moral  conditions  of  humanity. 
"Still,  as  regards  the  contrast  between  the 
poverty  of   the  nation   and  the   world    in    the 
nineteenth  century  and  their  wealth  now,  it  is 
not  greater,   possibly,  than    had   been    before 
seen  in  human  history,  perhaps  not    greater, 
for  example,  than  that  between  the  poverty  of 
this     country     during    the     earliest     colonial 
period    of    the    seventeenth    century    and   the 


386  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

relatively  great  wealth  it  had  attained  at  the 
close  of  the  nineteenth,  or  between  the  Eng- 
land of  William  the  Conqueror  and  that  of 
Victoria.  Although  the  aggregate  riches  of 
a  nation  did  not  then,  as  now^  afford  any 
accurate  criterion  of  the  condition  of  the 
masses  of  its  people,  yet,  instances  like  these 
afford  partial  parallels  for  the  merely  material 
side  of  the  contrast  between  the  nineteenth 
and  the  twentieth  centuries.  It  is  when  we 
contemplate  the  moral  aspect  of  that  contrast 
that  we  find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  a 
phenomenon  for  which  history  ofTers  no  prece- 
dent, however  far  back  we  may  cast  our  eye. 
One  might  almost  be  excused  who  should 
exclaim,  ^  Here,  surely,  is  something  like  a 
miracle  ! '  Nevertheless,  when  we  give  over 
idle  wonder  and  beo^in  to  examine  the  seemincf 
prodigy  critical!}',  we  find  it  no  prodigy  at  all, 
much  less  a  miracle.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  a  moral  new  birth  of  humanity,  or  a 
wdiolesale  destruction  of  the  wicked,  and  sur- 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  387 

vival  of  the  good,  to  account  for  the  fact 
before  us.  It  finds  its  simple  and  obvious 
explanation  in  the  reaction  of  a  changed  en- 
vironment upon  human  nature.  It  means 
merely  that  a  form  of  society  which  was 
founded  on  the  pseudo  self-interest  of  selfish- 
ness, and  appealed  solely  to  the  anti-social 
and  brutal  side  of  human  nature,  has  been 
replaced  by  institutions  based  on  the  true  self- 
interest  of  a  rational  unselfishness,  and  appeal- 
ing to  the  social  and  generous  instincts  of 
men. 

"My  friends,  if  you  would  see  men  again 
the  beasts  of  prey  they  seemed  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  restore 
the  old  social  and  industrial  system,  which 
taught  them  to  view  their  natural  prey  in  their 
fellow-men,  and  find  tlieir  gain  in  the  loss  of 
others.  No  doubt  it  seems  to  you  that  no 
necessity,  however  dire,  would  have  tempted 
you  to  subsist  on  what  superior  skill  or 
strength   enabled   you    to  wrest    from   others 


388  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

equal!}'  need}'.  But  suppose  it  were  not 
merely  your  own  life  that  you  were  responsible 
for.  I  know  well  that  there  must  have  been 
man}'  a  man  among  our  ancestors  who,  if 
it  had  been  merely  a  question  of  his  own  life, 
would  sooner  have  given  it  up  than  nourished 
it  by  bread  snatched  from  others.  But  this  he 
was  not  permitted  to  do.  He  had  dear  lives 
dependent  on  him.  Men  loved  women  in 
those  days,  as  now.  God  knows  how  they 
dared  be  fathers,  but  they  had  babies  as  sweet, 
no  doubt,  to  them  as  ours  to  us,  whom  they 
must  feed,  clothe,  educate.  The  gentlest  crea- 
tures are  fierce  when  they  have  young  to  pro- 
vide for,  and  in  that  wolfish  society  the  strug- 
gle for  bread  borrowed  a  peculiar  desperation 
from  the  tenderest  sentiments.  For  the  sake 
of  those  dependent  on  him,  a  man  might  not 
choose,  but  must  plunge  into  the  foul  fight, 
—  cheat,  overreach,  supplant,  defraud,  buy 
below  worth  and  sell  above,  break  down  the 
business  by  which  his  neighbor  fed  his  young 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  389 

ones,  tempt  men  to  buy  what  they  ought  not 
and  to  sell  what  they  should  not,  grind  his 
laborers,  sweat  his  debtors,  cozen  his  creditors. 
Though  a  man  sought  it  carefully  with  tears, 
it  was  hard  to  find  a  way  in  \vhich  he  could 
earn  a  living  and  provide  for  his  family  except 
by  pressing  in  before  some  weaker  rival  and 
taking  the  food  from  his  mouth.  Even  the 
ministers  of  religion  were  not  exempt  from 
this  cruel  necessity.  While  they  Vv'arned  their 
flocks  against  the  love  of  money,  regard  for 
their  families  compelled  them  to  keep  an  out- 
look for  the  pecuniary  prizes  of  their  calling. 
Poor  fellows,  theirs  w^as  indeed  a  trying  busi- 
ness, preaching  to  men  a  generosity  and  unself- 
ishness which  they,  and  everybody,  knew 
would,  in  the  existing  state  of  the  world 
reduce  to  poverty  those  who  should  practice 
them,  laying  down  laws  of  conduct  which 
the  law  of  self-preservation  compelled  men 
to  break.  Looking  on  the  inhuman  spec- 
tacle   of  society,    these    worthy    men    bitterly 


390  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

bemoaned  the  depravity  of  human  nature  ;  as 
if  anrrehc  nature  would  not  have  been  de- 
bauched  in  such  a  devil's  school  !  Ah,  m}^ 
friends,  believe  me,  it  is  not  now  in  this  happy 
age  that  humanity  is  proving  the  divinit}' 
within  it.  It  was  rather  in  those  evil  days 
when  not  even  the  fight  for  life  with  one  an- 
other, the  struggle  for  mere  existence,  in 
whicli  mercy  was  folly,  could  wholly  banisli 
generosity  and  kindness  from  the  earth. 

"  It  is  not  hard  to  understand  the  desperation 
with  which  men  and  women,  who  under  other 
conditions  would  have  been  full  of  gentleness 
and  ruth,  fought  and  tore  each  other  in  the 
scramble  for  gold,  when  we  realize  what  it 
meant  to  miss  it,  what  poverty  was  in  that 
day.  For  the  body  it  was  hunger  and  thirst, 
torment  by  heat  and  frost,  in  sickness,  neglect, 
in  health,  unremitting  toil ;  for  the  moral 
nature  it  meant  oppression,  contempt,  and  tlie 
patient  endurance  of  indignity,  brutish  associ- 
ations from  infancy,  the  loss  of  all  the  inno- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  391 

cence  of  childhood,  the  grace  of  womanhood, 
the  dignity  of  manhood ;  for  the  mind  it 
meant  the  death  of  ignorance,  the  torpor  of 
all  those  faculties  which  distinguish  us  from 
brutes,  the  reduction  of  life  to  a  round  of 
bodily  functions. 

"  Ah,  my  friends,  if  such  a  fate  as  this  were 
oi]"ered  you  and  your  children  as  the  only 
al';ernative  of  success  in  the  accumulation  of 
wi^alth,  how  long  do  you  fancy  would  you  be 
in  sinking  to  the  moral  level  of  your  an- 
cestors? 

"Some  two  or  three  centuries  ago  an  act  of 
barbarity  was  committed  in  India,  which, 
though  the  number  of  lives  destroyed  was  but 
a  few  score,  was  attended  by  such  peculiar 
horrors  that  its  memory  is  likely  to  be  perpet- 
ual. A  number  of  English  prisoners  were 
shut  up  in  a  room  containing  not  enough  air 
to  supply  one  tenth  their  number.  The  unfor- 
tunates were  gallant  men,  devoted  comrades 
in  service,  but,  as  the  agonies  of  suffocation 


392  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

began  to  take  hold  on  them,  they  forgot  all 
else,  and  became  involved  in  a  hideous  strupr- 
gle,  each  one  for  himself,  and  against  all 
others,  to  force  a  way  to  one  of  the  small 
apertures  of  the  prison  at  which  alone  it  was 
possible  to  get  a  breath  of  air.  It  was  a 
strucrcfle  in  which  men  became  beasts,  and  the 
recital  of  its  horrors  by  the  few  survivors 
so  shocked  our  forefathers  that  for  a  cen- 
tury later  we  find  it  a  stock  reference  in 
their  literature  as  a  typical  illustration  of 
the  extreme  possibilities  of  human  misery,  as 
shocking  in  its  moral  as  its  physical  aspect. 
They  could  scarcely  have  anticipated  that  to 
us  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,  with  its  press 
of  maddened  men  tearing  and  trampling  one 
another  in  the  struggle  to  win  a  place  at  the 
breathing  holes,  would  seem  a  striking  type 
of  the  society  of  their  age.  It  lacked  some- 
thing of  being  a  complete  type,  however,  for  in 
the  Calcutta  Black  Hole  there  were  no  tender 
women,   no  little  children   and  old  men  and 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  393 

women,  no  cripples.     They  were  at  least  all 
men,  strong  to  bear,  who  suffered. 

"When  we  reflect  that  the  ancient  order  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking  was  prevalent  up 
to  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  while  to 
us  the  new  order  which  succeeded  it  already 
seems  antique,  even  our  parents  having 
known  no  other,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  as- 
tounded at  the  suddenness  with  which  a  tran- 
sition so  profound  beyond  all  previous  experi- 
rience  of  the  race,  must  have  been  effected. 
Some  observation  of  the  state  of  men's  minds 
during  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  will,  however,  in  great  measure, 
dissipate  this  astonishment.  Though  general 
intelligence  in  the  modern  sense  could  not  be 
said  to  exist  in  any  community  at  that  time, 
yet,  as  compared  with  previous  generations, 
the  one  then  on  the  stage  was  intelligent.  The 
inevitable  consequence  of  even  this  compara- 
tive degree  of  intelligence  had  been  a  percep- 
tion of  the  evils  of  society,  such  as  had  never 


394  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

before  been  general.  It  is  quite  true  that 
these  evils  had  been  even  worse,  much  worse, 
in  previous  ages.  It  was  the  increased  intelli- 
gence of  the  masses  which  made  the  difference, 
as  the  dawn  reveals  the  squalor  of  surround- 
ings which  in  the  darkness  may  have  seemed 
tolerable.  The  key-note  of  the  literature  of 
the  period  was  one  of  compassion  for  the  poor 
and  unfortunate,  and  indignant  outcry  against 
the  failure  of  the  social  machinery  to  ameli- 
orate the  miseries  of  men.  It  is  plain  from 
these  outbursts  that  the  moral  hideousness  of 
the  spectacle  about  them  was,  at  least  by 
flashes,  fully  realized  by  the  best  of  the  men 
of  that  time,  and  that  the  lives  of  some  of 
the  more  sensitive  and  generous  hearted  of 
them  were  rendered  well-nigh  unendurable 
by  the  intensity  of  their  sympathies. 

"  Although  the  idea  of  the  vital  unity  of  the 
family  of  mankind,  the  reality  of  human 
brotherhood,  was  very  far  A'om  being  appre- 
hended    by    them    as    the    moral    axicm    it 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  395 

seems   to   us,   yet  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  there  was  no  feeling  at    all    correspond- 
ing   to    it.     I    could    read   you    passages    of 
great  beauty  from  some  of  their  writers  which 
show    that    the    conception    was    clearly    at- 
tained by  a   few,    and    no    doubt  vaguely  by 
many  more.     Moreover,  it  must  not  be  forgot- 
ten that  the  nineteenth  century  was  in  name 
Christian,  and  the  fact  that  the  entire  commer- 
cial and  industrial    frame   of  society  was  the 
embodiment  of  the  anti-Christian  spirit,  must 
have  had  some  weight,  though  I  admit  it  was 
strangely  litde,  with  the  nominal  followers  of 

Jesus  Christ. 

"When  we  inquire  why  it  did  not  have  more, 
whv  in  general,  long  after  a  vast  majority  of 
men  had  agreed  as  to  the  crying  abuses  of  the 
existing  social  arrangement,  they  still  toler- 
ated it,  or  contented  themselves  with  talking 
of  petty  reforms  in  it,  we  come  upon  an 
extraordinary  fact.  It  was  the  sincere  belief 
of  even  the  best  of  men  at  that  epoch  that  the 


39^  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

only  stable  elements  in  human  nature,  on 
which  a  social  S3'stem  could  be  safely  founded, 
were  its  worst  propensities.  They  had  been 
taught  and  believed  that  greed  and  self-seek- 
ing were  all  that  held  mankind  together,  and 
that  all  human  associations  would  fall  to  pieces 
if  anything  were  done  to  blunt  the  edge  of 
tliese  motives  or  curb  their  operation.  In  a 
word,  they  believed — even  those  who  longed 
to  believe  otherwise  —  the  exact  reverse  of 
what  seems  to  us  self-evident ;  they  believed, 
that  is,  that  the  anti-social  qualities  of  men,  and 
not  their  social  qualities,  w^ere  wdiat  furnished 
the  cohesive  force  of  society.  It  seemed  rea- 
sonable to  them  that  men  lived  together  solely 
for  the  purpose  of  overreaching  and  oppres- 
sing one  another,  and  of  being  overreached  and 
oppressed,  and  that  while  a  society  that  gave 
full  scope  to  these  propensities  could  stand, 
there  w^ould  be  little  chance  for  one  based  on 
the  idea  of  co-operation  for  the  benefit  of  all. 
It  seems  absurd  to  expect  any  one  to  believe 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  397 

that  convictions  like  these  were  ever  seriously 
entertained  by  men  ;  but  that  they  were  not 
only  entertained  by  our  great-grandfathers, 
but  were  responsible  for  the  long  delay  in  do- 
ing away  with  the  ancient  order,  after  a  con- 
viction of  its  intolerable  abuses  had  become 
general,  is  as  well  established  as  any  fact  in 
history  can  be.  Just  here  you  will  find  the 
explanation  of  the  profound  pessimism  of  the 
literature  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  note  of  melancholy  in  its  poetry, 
and  the  cynicism  of  its  humor. 

"Feeling  that  the  condition  of  the  race  was 
unendurable,  they  had  no  clear  hope  of  any- 
thing better.  They  believed  that  the  evolution 
of  humanity  had  resulted  in  leading  it  into  a 
ciilde  sac,  and  that  there  was  no  way  of  get- 
ting forward.  The  frame  of  men's  minds  at 
this  time  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  treatises 
which  have  come  down  to  us,  and  may  even 
now  be  consulted  in  our  libraries  by  the  curi- 
ous, in  which  laborious  arguments  are  pursued 


398  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

to  prove  that  despite  the  evil  pHght  of  men,  life 
was  still,  by  some  slight  preponderance  of  con- 
siderations, probably  better  worth  living  than 
leaving.  Despising  themselves,  they  despised 
their  Creator.  There  was  a  general  decay  of 
religious  belief.  Pale  and  watery  gleams, 
from  skies  thickly  veiled  by  doubt  and  dread, 
alone  lighted  up  the  chaos  of  earth.  That 
men  should  doubt  Him  whose  breath  is  in 
their  nostrils,  or  dread  the  hands  that  moulded 
them,  seems  to  us  indeed  a  pitiable  insanity; 
but  we  must  remember  that  children  who  are 
brave  by  day  have  sometimes  foolish  fears  at 
nip-ht.  The  dawn  has  come  since  then.  It  is 
very  easy  to  believe  in  the  fatherhood  of  God 
in  the  twentieth  century. 

"  Briefly,  as  must  needs  be  in  a  discourse  of 
this  character,  I  have  adverted  to  some  of  the 
causes  which  had  prepared  men's  minds  for 
the  chanore  from  the  old  to  the  new  order,  as 
well  as  some  causes  of  the  conservatism  of 
despair  which  for  a  while  held  it  back  after 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  399 

the  time  was  ripe.     To  wonder  at  the  rapidity 
with  which  the  change  was  completed  after  its 
possibihty  was  first  entertained,  is  to  forget  the 
intoxicating  effect  of  hope    upon   minds  long 
accustomed    to    despair.     The  sunburst,   after 
so  long  and  dark  a  night,    must  needs    have 
had  a  dazzling  efiect.     From  the  moment  men 
allowed  themselves  to  believe   that    humanity 
after  all  had  not  been  meant  for  a  dwarf,  that 
its    squat  stature   was  not  the   measure   of  its 
possible  growth,   but    that    it   stood    upon   the 
verge  of   an   avatar  of  limitless  development, 
the  reaction  must  needs  have  been  overwhelm- 
ing.     It  is   evident  that    nothing  w^as  able  to 
stand  against  the  enthusiasm  which  the  new 
faith  inspired. 

"Here  at  last,  men  must  have  felt,  was  a 
cause  compared  with  which  the  grandest  of 
historic  causes  had  been  triviaJ.  It  vvas  doubt- 
less because  it  could  have  commanded  millions 
of  martyrs,  that  none  were  needed.  The 
change  of  a  dynasty  in  a  petty  kingdom  of  the 


400  LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

old  world  often  cost  more  lives  than  did  the 
revolution  which  set  the  feet  of  the  human  race 
at  last  in  the  right  way. 

"  Doubtless  it  ill  beseems  one  to  whom  the 
boon  of  life  in  our  resplendent  age  has  been 
vouchsafed  to  wish  his  destiny  other  and  yet  ^ 
have  often  thought  that  I  would  fain  exchange 
mv  share  in  this  serene  and  2;olden  dav  for  a 
place  in  that  stormy  epoch  of  transition,  when 
heroes  burst  the  barred  gate  of  the  future  and 
revealed  to  the  kindling  gaze  of  a  liopeless 
race,  in  place  of  the  blank  wall  that  had 
closed  its  path,  a  vista  of  progress  whose 
end,  for  ver}'  excess  of  light,  still  dazzles  us. 
Ah,  my  friends  !  who  Vv'ill  say  that  to  have 
lived  then,  v^iien  the  weakest  influence  was  a 
lever  to  v^'hose  touch  the  centuries  trembled, 
was  not  worth  a  share,  even  in  this  era  of  frui- 
tion? 

"You  know  the  story  of  that  last,  greatest, 
and  most  bloodless  of  revolutions.  In  the 
time   of   one   generation   men    laid    aside    the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  4OI 

social  traditions  and  practices  of  barbarians, 
and  assumed  a  social  order  worthy  of  rational 
and  human  beings.  Ceasing  to  be  predatory 
in  their  habits,  they  became  co-workers,  and 
found  in  fraternity,  at  once,  the  science  of 
wealth  and  of  happiness.  '  What  shall  I  eat 
and  drink,  and  wherewithal  shall  I  be 
clothed?'  stated  as  a  problem  beginning  and 
ending  in  self,  had  been  an  anxious  and  an 
endless  one.  But  when  once  it  was  conceived, 
not  from  the  individual,  but  the  fraternal  stand- 
point, 'What  shall  we  eat  and  drink,  and 
wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed?'  —  its  diffi- 
culties vanished. 

"  Poverty  with  servitude  had  been  the  result 
for  the  mass  of  humanit}^  of  attempting  to 
solve  the  problem  of  maintenance  from  the 
individual  standpoint,  but  no  sooner  had  the 
nation  become  the  sole  capitalist  and  employer, 
than  not  alone  did  plenty  replace  poverty,  but 
the  last  vestige  of  the  serfdom  of  man  to  man 
disappeared   from   earth.      Human  slavery,  so 


402  LOOKING  BACkWARD. 

often  vainly  scotched,  at  last  was  killed.  The 
means  of  subsistence  no  longer  doled  out  by 
men  to  women,  by  employer  to  employed,  by 
rich  to  poor,  was  distributed  from  a  common 
stock  as  among  children  at  the  father's  table. 
It  was  impossible  for  a  man  any  longer  to  use 
his  fellow-men  as  tools  for  his  own  profit. 
His  esteem  was  the  only  sort  of  gain  he 
could  thenceforth  make  out  of  him.  There 
was  no  more  either  arrogance  or  servility  in 
the  relations  of  human  beings  to  one  another. 
For  the  first  time  since  the  creation  every  man 
stood  up  straight  before  God.  The  fear  of 
want  and  the  lust  of  gain  became  extinct 
motives,  when  abundance  was  assured  to  all 
and  immoderate  possessions  made  impossible  of 
attainment.  There  were  no  more  beggars  nor 
almoners.  Equity  left  charity  without  an 
occupation.  The  ten  commandments  became 
well-nigh  obsolete  in  a  world  where  there  was 
no  temptation  to  theft,  no  occasion  to  lie  eith.er 
for  fear  or  favor,  no  room  for  envy  where  all 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  403 

were  equal,  and  little  provocation  to  violence 
where  men  were  disarmed  of  power  to  injure 
one  another.  Humanity's  ancient  dream  of 
liberty,  equality,  fraternity,  mocked  by  so 
many  ages,  at  last  was  realized. 

"As  in  the  old  society  the  generous,  the  just, 
the  tender-hearted  had  been  placed  at  a  dis- 
advantage by  the  possession  of  those  qualities, 
so  in  the  new  society  the  cold-hearted,  the 
greedy  and  self-seeking  found  themselves  out 
of  joint  with  the  world.  Now  that  the  condi- 
tions of  life  for  the  first  time  ceased  to  operate 
as  a  forcing  process  to  develop  the  brutal 
qualities  of  human  nature,  and  the  premium 
which  had  heretofore  encouraged  selfishness 
was  not  only  removed,  but  placed  upon  un- 
selfishness, it  was  for  the  first  time  possible  to 
see  what  unperverted  human  nature  really 
w^as  like.  The  depraved  tendencies,  which 
had  previously  overgrown  and  obscured  the 
better  to  so  large  an  extent,  now  withered 
like    cellar    fungi    in   the   open   air,    and    the 


404  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

nobler  qualities  showed  a  sudden  luxuriance 
which  turned  cynics  into  panegyrists  and  tor 
the  first  time  in  human  history  tempted  man- 
kind to  fall  in  love  with  itself.  Soon  was  fully 
revealed,  what  the  divines  and  philosophers 
of  the  old  world  never  would  have  believed, 
that  human  nature  in  its  essential  qualities  is 
good,  not  bad,  that  men  by  their  natural  inten- 
tion and  structure  are  generous,  not  selfish, 
pitiful,  not  cruel,  sympathetic,  not  arrogant, 
godlike  in  aspirations,  instinct  with  divinest  im- 
pulses of  tenderness  and  self-sacrifice,  images 
of  God  indeed,  not  the  travesties  upon  him 
they  had  seemed.  The  constant  pressure, 
through  numberless  generations,  of  conditions 
of  life  which  might  have  perverted  angels, 
had  not  been  able  to  essentially  alter  the 
natural  nobility  of  the  stock,  and  these  condi- 
tions once  removed,  like  a  bent  tree,  it  had 
sprung  back  to  its  normal  uprightness. 

"  To  put  the  whole  matter  in  the  nutshell  of  a 
parable,    let    me    compare    humanity    in    the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  405 

olden  time  to  a  rosebush  planted  in  a  swamp, 
watered  with  black  bog-water,  breathing  mias- 
matic fogs  by  day,  and  chilled  with  poison  dews 
at  night.  Innumerable  generations  oi  garden^ 
ers  had  done  their  best  to  make  it  bloom,  but 
beyond  an  occasional  half-opened  bud  with  a 
worm  at  the  heart,  their  efforts  had  been  un- 
successful. ]^Ian3^  indeed,  claimed  that  the 
bush  was  no  rosebush  at  all,  but  a  noxious 
shrub,  fit  only  to  be  uprooted  and  burned. 
The  gardeners,  for  the  most  part,  however, 
held  that  the  bush  belonged  to  the  rose  fiimily, 
but  had  some  ineradicable  taint  about  it,  which 
prevented  the  buds  from  coming  out,  and 
accounted  for  its  generally  sickly  condiUon. 
There  were  a  few,  indeed,  who  maintained  that 
the  stock  was  good  enough,  that  the  trouble 
was  in  the  bog,  and  that  under  more  favorable 
conditions,  the  plant  might  be  expected  to  do 
better.  But  these  persons  were  not  regular 
gardeners,  and  being  condemned  by  the  latter 
as  mere  theorists  and  day  dreamers,  were,  for 


406  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

the  most  part,  so  regarded  by  the  people. 
Moreover,  urged  some  eminent  moral  philos- 
ophers, even  conceding  for  the  sake  of  tlie 
argument  that  the  bush  might  possibly  do 
better  elsewhere,  it  was  a  more  valuable  disci- 
pline for  the  buds  to  try  to  bloom  in  a  bog  than 
it  would  be  under  more  favorable  conditions. 
The  buds  that  succeeded  in  opening  might, 
indeed,  be  very  rare  and  the  flowers  pale  and 
scentless,  but  they  represented  far  more  moral 
effort  than  if  they  had  bloomed  spontaneously 
in  a  garden. 

"The  regular  gardeners  and  the  moral  phil- 
osophers had  their  way.  The  bush  remained 
rooted  in  the  bog,  and  the  old  course  of  treat- 
ment went  on.  Continually  new  varieties  of 
forcing  mixtures  were  applied  to  the  roots,  and 
more  recipes  than  could  be  numbered,  each 
declared  by  its  advocates  the  best  and  only 
suitable  preparation,  were  used  to  kill  the 
vermin  and  remove  the  mildew.  This  went 
on  a  very  long  time.     Occasionally  some  one 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  407 

claimed  to  observe  a  slight  improvement  in 
the  appearance  of  the  bush,  but  there  were 
quite  as  many  who  declared  that  it  did  not  look 
so  well  as  it  used  to.  On  the  w'ncle  there 
could  not  be  said  to  be  any  marked  change. 
Finally,  during  a  period  of  general  despond- 
ency as  to  the  prospects  of  the  bush  where  it 
was,  the  idea  of  transplanting  it  was  again 
mooted,  and  this  time  found  favor.  'Let  us 
try  it,'  Vv'as  the  general  voice.  '  Perhaps  it 
may  thrive  better  elsewhere,  and  here  it  is  cer- 
tainly doubtful  if  it  be  worth  cultivating 
longer.'  So  it  came  about  that  the  rosebush 
of  humanity  was  transplanted,  and  set  in 
sweet,  warm,  dr}'  earth,  where  the  sun  bathed 
it,  the  stars  wooed  it,  and  the  south  wind  ca- 
ressed it.  Then  it  appeared  that  it  was 
indeed  a  rosebush.  Tlie  vermin  and  the  mil- 
dew disappeared,  and  the  bush  was  covered 
with  most  beautiful  red  roses,  whose  fragrance 
filled  the  world. 

"  It  is  a  pledge  of  the  destiny  appointed  for 


408  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

US  that  the  Creator  has  set  in  our  hearts  art 
infinite  standard  of  achievement,  judged  by 
which  our  past  attainments  seem  always  insig- 
nificant, and  the  goal  never  nearer.  Had  our 
forefathers  conceived  a  state  of  society  in  wdiich 
men  should  live  together  like  brethren  dwell- 
ing in  unity,  without  strifes  or  envyings,  vio- 
lence or  overreaching,  and  where,  at  the  price 
of  a  degree  of  labor  not  greater  than  health 
demands,  in  their  chosen  occupations,  ^  they 
should  be  wholly  freed  from  care  for  the  mor- 
row and  left  with  no  more  concern  for  their 
livelihood  than  trees  which  are  watered  by  un- 
failing streams,  —  had  they  conceived  such  a 
condition,  I  say,  it  would  have  semed  to  them 
nothing  less  than  paradise.  They  would  liavc 
confounded  it  with  their  idea  of  heaven,  nor 
dreamed  that  there  could  possibly  lie  further 
beyond  anything  to  be  desired  or  striven  for. 

"But  how  is  it  with  us  who  stand  on  this 
lieight  which  they  gazed  up  to?  Already  we 
liave   well-nigh  forgotten,    except  when    it   is 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  409 

especially  called  to  our  minds  by  some  occa- 
sion like  the  present,  that  it  was  not  always 
with  men  as  it  is  now.  It  is  a  strain  on  our 
imaginations  to  conceive  the  social  arrange- 
ments of  our  immediate  ancestors.  We  find 
them  grotesque.  The  solution  of  the  problem 
of  physical  maintenance  so  as  to  banish  care 
and  crime,  so  far  from  seeming  to  us  an  ulti- 
mate attainment,  appears  but  as  a  preliminary 
to  an3'thing  like  real  human  progress.  We 
have  but  relieved  ourselves  of  an  impertinent 
and  needless  harassment  which  hindered  our 
ancestors  from  undertaking  the  real  ends  of 
existence.  We  are  merely  stripped  for  the 
race  ;  no  more.  We  are  like  a  child  which 
has  just  learned  to  stand  upright  and  to  walk. 
It  is  a  great  event  from  the  child's  point  of 
view,  when  he  first  walks.  Perhaps  he  fan- 
cies that  there  can  be  little  be3'ond  that 
achievement,  but  a  year  later  he  has  forgotten 
that  he  could  not  always  walk.  His  horizon 
did  but  widen  when  he  rose,  and  enlarge  as 


4IO  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

he  moved-  A  great  event  indeed,  in  one 
sense,  was  his  first  step,  but  onh^  as  a  begin- 
ning, not  as  the  end.  His  true  career  was 
but  then  first  entered  on.  The  enfranchise- 
ment of  humanity  in  the  last  century,  from 
mental  and  physical  absorption  in  working 
and  scheming  for  the  mere  bodily  necessities, 
may  be  regarded  as  a  species  of  second  birth 
of  the  race,  without  which  its  first  birth  to  an 
existence  that  was  but  a  burden  would  forever 
have  remained  unjustified,  but  whereby  it  is 
now  abundantly  vindicated.  Since  then,  hu- 
manity has  entered  on  a  new  phase  of  spirit- 
ual development,  an  evolution  of  higher  facul- 
ties, the  very  existence  of  which  in  human 
nature  our  ancestors  scarcely  suspected.  In 
place  of  the  dreary  hopelessness  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  its  profound  pessimism  as  to 
the  future  of  humanity,  the  animating  idea  of 
the  present  age  is  an  enthusiastic  conception  of 
the  opportunities  of  our  earthl}'  existence,  and 
the  unbounded  possibilities  of  human  nature. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  411 

The  betterment  of  mankind  from  generation 
to  generation,  physically,  mentally,  morally, 
is  recognized  as  the  one  great  object  su- 
premely worthy  of  effort  and  of  sacrifice.  We 
believe  the  race  for  the  first  time  to  have  en- 
tered on  the  realization  of  God's  ideal  of  it, 
and  each  generation  must  now  be  a  step 
upward. 

"  Do  you  ask  what  we  look  for  when  unnum- 
bered generations  shall  have  passed  away? 
I  answer,  the  way  stretches  far  before  us  but 
the  end  is  lost  in  light.  For  twofold  is  the 
return  of  man  to  God  ^  who  is  our  home,'  the 
return  of  the  individual  by  the  way  of  death, 
and  the  return  of  the  race  by  the  fulfilment  of 
the  evolution,  when  the  divine  secret  hidden  in 
the  germ  shall  be  perfectly  unfolded.  With  a 
tear  for  the  dark  past,  turn  we  then  to  the 
dazzling  future,  and,  veiling  our  eyes,  press 
forward.  The  long  and  weary  winter  of  the 
race  is  ended.  Its  summer  has  begun.  Hu- 
manity has  burst  the  chrysalis.  The  heavens 
are  before  it." 


412  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

T  NEVER  could  tell  just  why,  but  Sunday 
"^  afternoon,  during  my  old  life  had  been 
a  time  when  I  w^as  peculiarly  subject  to  mel- 
ancholy, when  the  color  unaccountably  faded 
out  of  all  the  aspects  of  life,  and  everything 
appeared  patheticall}"  uninteresting.  The 
hours,  \vhich  in  general  were  wont  to  bear 
me  easily  on  their  wings,  lost  the  power  of 
flight  and,  toward  the  close  of  the  day  droop- 
ing quite  to  earth,  had  fairly  to  be  dragged 
along  by  main  strength.  Perhaps  it  was 
partly  owing  to  the  established  association  of 
ideas  that,  despite  the  utter  change  in  my  cir- 
cumstances, I  fell  into  a  state  of  profound 
depression  on  the  afternoon  of  this  my  first 
Sunday  in  the  twentieth  century. 

It  was  not,  however,  on  the  present  occa- 
sion  a  depression  without  specific  cause,  the 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  413 

mere  vague  melancholy  I  have  spoken  of,  but 
a  sentiment  suggested  and  certainly  quite 
justified  by  my  position.  The  sermon  of  Mr. 
Barton,  with  its  constant  implication  of  the 
vast  moral  gap  between  the  century  to  which 
I  belonged  and  that  in  which  I  found  m3'self, 
had  had  an  effect  strongly  to  accentuate  my 
sense  of  loneliness  in  it.  Considerately  and 
philosophically  as  he  had  spoken,  his  words 
could  scarcely  have  failed  to  leave  upon  my 
mind  a  strong  impression  of  the  mingled 
pity,  curiosity,  and  aversion  which  I,  as  a 
representative  of  an  abhorred  epoch,  must 
excite  in  all  around  me. 

The  extraordinar}'  kindness  with  which  I 
had  been  treated  by  Dr.  Leete  and  his  famil}', 
and  especially  the  goodness  of  Edith,  had 
hitherto  prevented  my  fully  realizing  that 
their  real  sentiment  toward  me  must  neces- 
saril}'  be  that  of  the  Vvdiole  generation  to  which 
they  belonged.  The  recognition  of  this,  as 
regarded    Dr.    Leete    and    his    amiable    wife. 


414  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

however  p:iinful,  I  might  have  endured,  but 
the  conviction  that  Edith  must  share  their  feel- 
ing was  more  than  I  could  bear. 

The  crushincr  effect  with  which  this  belated 
perception  of  a  fact  so  obvious  came  to  me. 
opened  m}"  eyes  fully  to  something  which  per- 
haps the  reader  has  already  suspected, — I 
loved  Edith. 

Was  it  strange  that  I  did?  The  affecting 
occasion  on  which  our  intimacy  had  begun, 
w^hen  her  hands  had  drawn  me  out  of 
the  whirlpool  of  madness ;  the  fact  that  her 
sympathy  was  the  vital  breath  v.'hich  had  set 
me  up  in  this  new  life  and  enabled  me  to  sup- 
port it ;  my  habit  of  looking  to  her  as  the 
mediator  between  me  and  the  world  around  in 
a  sense  that  even  her  father  was  not,  —  these 
were  circumstances  that  had  predetermined 
a  result  which  her  remarkable  loveliness  of 
person  and  disposition  would  alone  have  ac- 
counted for.  It  was  quite  inevitable  th:it 
she  should  have  come  to  seem  to  me  in  a  sense 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  415 

quite  different  from  the  usual  experience  of 
lovers,  the  only  woman  in  this  world.  Now 
that  I  had  become  suddenly  sensible  of  the 
fatuity  of  the  hopes  I  had  begun  to  cherish,  I 
suffered  not  merely  what  another  lover  might, 
but  in  addition  a  desolate  loneliness,  an  utter 
forlornness,  such  as  no  other  lover,  however 
unhappy  could  have  felt. 

My  hosts  evidently  saw  that  I  was  depressed 
in  spirits,  and  did  their  best  to  divert  me. 
Edith  especially,  I  could  see,  was  distressed 
for  me,  but  according  to  the  usual  perversity 
of  lovers,  having  once  been  so  mad  as  to 
dream  of  receiving  something  more  from  her, 
there  was  no  longer  any  virtue  for  me  in  a 
kindness  that  I  knew  was  only  sympathy. 

Toward  nightfall,  after  secluding  myself  in 
my  room  most  of  the  afternoon,  I  went  into 
the  garden  to  walk  about.  The  day  was 
overcast,  with  an  autumnal  flavor  in  the 
warm,  still  air.  Finding  myself  near  the 
excavation,  I  entered  the  subterranean  cham- 


4l6  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

ber  and  sat  down  there.  ''This/'  I  muttered 
to  mj/self,  "is  the  only  home  I  have.  Let  me 
stay  here,  and  not  go  forth  an}^  more."  Seek- 
ing aid  from  the  familiar  surroundings,  I  en- 
deavored to  find  a  sad  sort  of  consolation  in 
reviving  tlie  past  and  summoning  up  the  forms 
and  faces  that  were  about  me  in  my  former 
life.  It  was  in  vain.  There  was  no  longer 
any  life  in  them..  For  nearly  one  hundred 
years  the  stars  had  been  looking  down  on 
Edith  Bartlett's  grave,  and  the  graves  of  all 
my  generation. 

The  past  was  dead,  crushed  beneath  a  cen- 
tury's weight,  and  from  the  present  I  was  shut 
out.  There  w^as  no  place  for  me  anywhere. 
I  v^'as  neither  dead  nor  properly  alive. 

"Forgive  me  for  following  you." 

I  looked  up.  Edith  stood  in  the  door  of 
the  subterranean  room,  regarding  me  smil- 
ingl}',  but  w'ith  eyes  full  of  sympathetic  dis- 
tress. 

"Send  me  away  if  I  am  intruding  on  you," 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  417 

she  said ;  "  but  we  saw  that  you  were  out  of 
spirits,  and  you  know  you  promised  to  let  me 
know  if  that  were  so.  You  have  not  kept 
your  word." 

I  rose  and  came  to  the  door,  trying  to  smile, 
but  making,  I  fancy,  rather  sorry  work  of 
it,  for  the  sight  of  her  loveliness  brought  home 
to  me  the  more  poignantly  the  cause  of  my 
wretchedness. 

"I  was  feehng  a  little  lonely,  that  is  all,"  I 
said.  "  Has  it  never  occurred  to  you  that  my 
position  is  so  much  more  utterly  alone  than 
any  human  being's  ever  was  before  that  a  new 
word  is  really  needed  to  describe  it?" 

"Oh,  3^ou  must  not  talk  that  way, — you 
must  not  let  yourself  feel  that  way, — you 
must  not !  "  she  exclaimed,  with  moistened 
eyes.  "  Are  w^e  not  your  friends  ?  It  is  your 
own  fault  if  you  will  not  let  us  be.  You  need 
not  be  lonely." 

"You  are  good  to  me  beyond  my  power  of 
understanding,"  I  said,  "but  don't  you  suppose 


4l8  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

that  I  know  it  is  pity  merely,  sweet  pity,  but 
pity  only.  I  should  be  a  fool  not  to  know  that 
I  cannot  seem  to  you  as  other  men  of  your  own 
generation  do,  but  as  some  strange  uncanny 
being,  a  stranded  creature  of  an  unknown 
sea,  whose  forlornness  touches  your  compas- 
sion despite  its  grotesqueness.  I  have  been 
so  foolish,  you  were  so  kind,  as  to  almost  forget 
that  this  must  needs  be  so,  and  to  fancy  I 
might  in  time  become  naturalized,  as  we  used 
to  sa}',  in  this  age,  so  as  to  feel  like  one  of 
you  and  to  seem  to  you  like  the  other  men 
about  you.  But  Mr.  Barton's  serm.on  taught 
me  how  vain  such  a  fancy  is,  how  great 
the  gulf  between  us  must  seem  to  you." 

"  Oh  that  miserable  sermon !  "  she  ex- 
claimed, fairly  crying  now  in  her  sympathy, 
'^I  wanted  you  not  to  hear  it.  What  does 
he  know  of  you?  He  has  read  in  old 
musty  books  about  your  times,  that  is  all. 
What  do  you  care  about  him,  to  let  yourself 
be  vexed  by  anything  he  said?     Isn't  it  any- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  419 

thino'  to  you,  that  we  who  know  you  feel  dif- 
ferently?  Don't  you  care  more  about  what 
we  think  of  you  than  what  he  does  who  never 
saw  you?  Oh,  Mr.  West!  you  don't  know, 
you  can't  think,  how  it  makes  me  feel  to  see 
you  so  forlorn.  I  can't  have  it  so.  What  can 
I  say  to  you?  How  can  I  convince  you  how 
different  our  feeling  for  you  is  from  what  you 
think?" 

As  before,  in  that  other  crisis  of  my  fate 
when  she  had  come  to  me,  she  extended  her 
hands  toward  me  in  a  gesture  of  helpfulness, 
and,  as  then,  I  caught  and  held  them  in  my 
own;  her  bosom  heaved  with  strong  emotion, 
and  little  tremors  in  the  fingers  which  I 
clasped  emphasized  the  depth  of  her  feeling. 
In  her  face,  pity  contended  in  a  sort  of  divine 
spite  against  the  obstacles  which  reduced  it 
to  impotence.  Womanly  compassion  surely 
never  wore  a  guise  more  lovely. 

Such  beauty  and  such  goodness  quite  melted 
me,  and  it  seemed  that  the  only  fitting  response 


420  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

I  could  make  was  to  tell  her  just  the  truth. 
Of  course  I  had  not  a  spark  of  hope,  but  on 
the  other  hand  I  had  no  fear  that  she  would  be 
angry.  She  was  too  pitiful  for  that.  So  I 
said  presentl}^,  "It  is  v.ery  ungrateful  in  me 
not  to  be  satisfied  wdth  such  kindness  as  you 
have  shown  me,  and  are  showing  me  now. 
But  are  you  so  blind  as  not  to  see  why  they 
are  not  enough  to  make  me  happy?  Don't 
you  see  that  it  is  because  I  have  been  mad 
enough  to  love  you  ?  " 

At  my  last  words  she  blushed  deeply  and 
her  eyes  fell  before  mine,  but  she  made  no 
effort  to  withdraw  her  hands  from  my  clasp. 
For  some  moments  she  stood  so,  panting  a 
little.  Then  blushing  deeper  than  ever,  but 
with  a  dazzling  smile,  she  looked  up. 

"Are  you  sure  it  is  not  you  who  are  blind?" 
she  said. 

That  was  all,  but  it  was  enough,  for  it  told 
me  that  unaccountable,  incredible  as  it  was, 
this    radiant    daughter   of  a    golden  age   had 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  42 1 

bestowed  upon  me  not  alone  her  pity,  but  her 
love.  Still,  I  half  believed  I  must  be  under 
some  blissful  hallucination  even  as  I  clasped 
her  in  my  arms.  "  If  I  am  beside  myself,"  I 
cried,  "let  me  remain  so." 

"  It  is  I  whom  you  must  think  beside  my- 
self," she  panted,  escaping  from  my  arms  when 
I  had  barely  tasted  the  sweetness  of  her  lips. 
"  Oh  !  oh  !  what  must  you  think  of  me  almost 
to  throw  myself  in  the  arms  of  one  I  have 
known  but  a  w^eek?  I  did  not  mean  that 
you  should  find  it  out  so  soon,  but  I  was  so 
sorry  for  you  I  forgot  what  I  was  saying. 
No,  no,  you  must  not  touch  me  again  till 
you  know  who  I  am.  After  that,  sir,  you 
shall  apologize  to  me  very  humbly  for  think- 
ing, as  I  know  you  do,  that  I  have  been  over 
quick  to  fall  in  love  with  you.  After  3'ou 
know  who  I  am,  3'ou  will  be  bound  to  confess 
that  it  was  nothing  less  than  my  duty  to  tall  in 
love  with  you  at  first  sight,  and  that  no  girl  of 
proper  feeling  in  my  place  could  do  otherwise/' 


422  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

As  may  be  supposed,  I  would  have  been 
quite  content  to  waive  explanations,  hut  Edith 
was  resolute  that  there  should  be  no  more 
kisses  until  she  had  been  vindicated  from  all 
suspicion  of  precipitancy  in  the  bestowal  of 
her  affections,  and  I  was  fain  to  follow  the 
lovely  enigma  into  the  house.  Having  come 
where  her  mother  was,  she  blushingly  whis- 
pered something  in  her  ear  and  ran  away, 
leaving  us  together. 

It  then  appeared  that,  strange  as  my  ex- 
perience had  been,  I  w^as  now  first  to  know 
what  was  perhaps  its  strangest  feature.  From 
Mrs.  Leete  I  learned  that  Edith  was  the  great 
grand-daughter  of  no  other  than  my  lost  love, 
Edith  Bartlett. 

After  mourning  me  for  fourteen  years,  she 
had  made  a  marriage  of  esteem,  and  left  a  son 
who  had  been  Mrs.  Leete's  father.  Mrs. 
Leete  had  never  seen  her  grand-mother,  but 
had  heard  much  of  her,  and  when  her  daugh- 
ter  was  born   gave   her  the   name  of  Edith, 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  423 

This  fact  might  have  tended  to  increase  the 
interest  which  the  girl  took,  as  she  grew  up,  in 
all  that  concerned  her  ancestress,  and  espec- 
ially the  tragic  story  of  the  supposed  death  of 
the  lover,  whose  wife  she  expected  to  be, 
in  the  conflagration  of  his  house.  It  was  a 
tale  well  calculated  to  touch  the  sympathy 
of  a  romantic  girl,  and  the  fact  that  the  blood 
of  the  unfortunate  heroine  was  in  her  own 
veins,  naturally  heightened  Edith's  interest  in 
it.  A  portrait  of  Edith  Bartlett  and  some  of 
her  papers,  including  a  packet  of  my  own 
letters,  were  among  the  family  heirlooms. 
The  picture  represented  'a  very  beautiful 
young  woman  about  whom  it  was  easy  to 
imagine  all  manner  of  tender  and  romantic 
things.  jMy  letters  gave  Edith  some  material 
for  forming  a  distinct  idea  of  my  personalit}' , 
and  both  together  sufficed  to  make  the  sad  old 
story  very  real  to  her.  She  used  to  tell  her 
parents,  half  jestingly,  that  she  would  never 
marry  till  she  found  a  lover  like  Julian  West, 
and  there  were  none  such  nowadays. 


424  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

Now  all  this,  of  course,  was  merely  the 
day-dreaming  of  a  girl  whose  mind  had  never 
been  taken  up  by  a  love  affair  of  her  own, 
and  would  have  had  no  serious  consequence 
but  for  the  discovery  that  morning  of  the  buried 
vault  in  her  father's  garden  and  the  revelation 
of  the  identity  of  its  inmate.  For  when  the 
apparently  lifeless  form  had  been  borne  into 
the  house,  the  face  in  the  locket  found  upon 
the  breast  was  instantly  recognized  as  that  of 
Edith  Bartlett,  and  by  that  fact,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  the  other  circumstances,  they 
knew  that  I  was  no  other  than  Julian  West. 
Even  had  there  been  no  thoui>;ht  as  at  first 
there  was  not,  of  my  resuscitation,  Mrs.  Leete 
said  she  believed  that  this  event  would  have 
affected  her  daughter  in  a  critical  and  life- 
long manner.  The  presumption  of  some  subtle 
ordering  of  destiny,  involving  her  fate  with 
mine,  would  under  all  circumstances  ha\^e 
possessed  an  irresistible  fascination  for  almost 
any  woman. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  425 

Whether  when  I  came  back  to  life  a  few 
hours  afterward,  and  from  the  first  seemed  to 
turn  to  her  with  a  peculiar  dependence  and  to 
lind  a  special  solace  in  her  company,  she  had 
been  too  quick  in  giving  her  love  at  the  first 
sign  of  mine,  I  could  now,  her  mother  said, 
judge  for  myself.  If  I  thought  so,  I  must  re- 
member that  this,  after  all,  was  the  twentieth 
and  not  the  nineteenth  century,  and  love  was, 
no  doubt,  now  quicker  in  growth,  as  well  as 
franker  in  utterance  than  then. 

From  Mrs.  Leete  I  went  to  Edith.  When  I 
found  her,  it  was  first  of  all  to  take  her  by 
both  hands  and  stand  a  long  dme  in  rapt  con- 
templation of  her  face.  As  I  gazed,  the  mem- 
ory of  that  other  Edith,  which  had  been 
aflected  as  with  a  benumbing  shock  by  the 
tremendous  experience  that  had  parted  us, 
revived,  and  my  heart  was  dissolved  with  ten- 
der and  pitiful  emotions,  but  also  ver}'  bliss- 
ful ones.  For  she  who  brought  to  me  so 
poignantl}^  the  sense  of  my  loss,  was  to  make 


426  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

that  loss  good.  It  was  as  if  from  her  eyes 
Edith  Bartlett  looked  into  mine,  and  smiled 
consolation  to  me.  My  fate  was  not  alone  the 
strangest,  but  the  most  fortunate  that  ever 
befell  a  man.  A  double  miracle  had  been 
wrought  for  me.  I  had  not  been  stranded 
upon  the  shore  of  this  strange  world  to  find 
myself  alone  and  companionless.  My  love, 
whom  I  had  dreamed  lost,  had  been  re-embod- 
ied for  my  consolation.  When  at  last,  in  an 
ecstasy  of  gratitude  and  tenderness,  I  folded 
the  lovely  girl  in  my  arms,  the  two  Ediths 
were  blended  in  my  thought,  nor  have  they 
ever  since  been  clearl}-  distinguished.  I  was 
not  long  in  finding  that  on  Edith's  part  there 
was  a  corresponding  confusion  of  identities. 
Never,  surely,  was  there  between  freshly 
united  lovers  a  stranger  talk  than  ours  that 
afternoon.  She  seemed  more  anxious  to  have 
me  speak  of  Edith  BarUett  than  of  herself,  of 
how  I  had  loved  her,  than  how  I  loved  herself, 
rewarding  my  fond  words  concerning  another 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  427 

woman  with  tears  and  tender  smiles  and  pres- 
sures of,  the  hand. 

"You  must  not  love  me  too  much  for  my- 
self," she  said.  "  I  shall  be  very  jealous  for 
her.  I  shall  not  let  you  forget  her.  I  am  go- 
ing to  tell  you  something  which  you  may 
think  strange.  Do  you  not  believe  that  spirits 
sometime  come  back  to  the  world  to  fulfil 
some  work  that  lay  near  their  hearts?  What 
if  I  were  to  tell  you  that  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  her  spirit  lives  in  me,  —  that 
Edith  Bartlett,  not  Edith  Leete,  is  my  real 
name.  I  cannot  know  it;  of  course  none  of 
us  can  know  who  we  really  are  ;  but  I  can  feel 
it.  Can  you  wonder  that  I  have  such  a  feel- 
ing, seeing  how  my  life  was  affected  by  her 
and  by  you,  even  before  you  came.  So  you 
see  you  need  not  trouble  to  love  me  at  all,  if 
only  you  are  true  to  her.  I  shall  not  be  likely 
to  be  jealous." 

Dr.  Leete  had  gone  out  that  afternoon,  and 
I  did  not  have  an  interview  with  him  till  later. 


428  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

lie  was  not,  apparently,  wholly  unprepared 
for  the  intelligence  I  conveyed,  and  shook  my 
hand  heartih^ 

"Under  any  ordinar}'  circumstances,  T-Jr. 
West,  I  should  say  that  this  step  had  been 
taken  on  rather  short  acquaintance ;  but  these 
are  decidedly  not  ordinary  circumstances.  In 
fairness,  perhaps  I  ought  to  tell  3'ou,"  he 
added,  smilingly,  that  while  I  cheerfull}"  con- 
sent to  the  proposed  arrangement,  you  must 
not  feel  too  much  indebted  to  me,  as  I  judge 
my  consent  is  a  mere  formality.  From  the 
m.oment  the  secret  of  the  locket  was  out.  It  had 
to  be,  I  fanc3\  Why,  bless  me,  if  Edith  had  not 
been  there  to  redeem  her  great  grand-mother's 
pledge,  I  really  apprehend  that  Mrs.  Leete's 
loyalty  to  me  would  have  suffered  a  severe 
strain.*' 

That  evening  the  garden  was  bathed  in 
moonlight,  and  till  midnight  Edith  and  I  wan- 
dered to  and  fro  there,  trying  to  grow  accus- 
tomed to  our  happiness. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  429 

"What  should  I  have  done  if  you  had  not 
cared  for  me?"  she  exclaimed.  ''I  was  afraid 
vou  were  not  going  to.  What  should  I  have 
done  then,  when  I  felt  I  was  consecrated  to 
you  !  As  soon  as  you  came  back  to  life,  I  was 
as  sure  as  if  she  had  told  m.e  that  I  was  to  be 
to  you  what  she  could  not  be,  but  that  could 
only  be  if  you  would  let  me.  Oh,  how  I  wanted 
to  tell  you  that  morning,  when  3^ou  felt  so  ter- 
ribly strange  among  us,  who  I  was,  but  dared 
not  open  my  lips  about  that,  or  let  father  or 
mother —  " 

"  That  must  have  been  wdiat  you  would  not 
let  3^our  father  tell  me  !  "  I  exclaimed,  refer- 
ring to  the  conversation  I  had  overheard  as  I 
came  out  of  my  trance. 

"Of  course  it  was,"  Edith  laughed.  "Did 
you  only  just  guess  that?  Father  being  only 
a  man,  thought  that  it  would  make  you  feel 
among  friends  to  tell  you  \\A\o  wc  were.  He 
did  not  think  of  me  at  all.  But  mother  knew 
what  I  meant,  and  so  I  had  my  way.     I  could 


430  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

never  have  looked  you  in  the  fiice  if  you  had 
known  who  I  was.  It  would  have  been  forc- 
ing myself  on  3^ou  quite  too  boldly.  I  am 
afraid  you  think  I  did  that  to-day,  as  it  was.  I 
am  sure  I  did  not  mean  to,  for  I  know  girls 
were  expected  to  hide  their  feelings  in  your 
day,  and  I  was  dreadfully  afraid  of  shocking 
you.  Ah  me,  how  hard  it  must  have  been  for 
them  to  have  always  had  to  conceal  their  love 
like  a  fault.  Why  did  they  think  it  such  a 
shame  to  love  any  one  till  they  had  been  given 
permission.  It  is  so  odd  to  think  of  waiting 
for  permission  to  fall  in  love.  Was  it  because 
men  in  those  days  were  angr}'  when  girls 
loved  them?  That  is  not  the  way  wonjen 
would  feel,  I  am  sure,  or  men  either,  I  think, 
now.  I  don't  understand  it  at  all.  That  will 
be  one  of  the  curious  things  about  the  women 
of  those  days  that  you  will  have  to  explain  to 
me.  I  don't  believe  Edith  Bartlett  was  so  fool- 
ish as  the  others." 

After  sundry  ineftectual  attempts  at  parting. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  43 1 

she  finally  insisted  that  we  must  say  goodnight. 
I  was  about  to  imprint  upon  her  lips  the  posi- 
tively last  kiss,  when  she  said  with  an  inde- 
scribable archness  : 

"  One  thing  troubles  me.  Are  you  sure 
that  you  quite  forgive  Edith  Bartlett  for  marry- 
ing any  one  else?  The  books  that  have  come 
down  to  us  make  out  lovers  of  your  time  more 
jealous  than  fond,  and  that  is  what  makes  me 
ask.  It  would  be  a  great  relief  to  me  if  I 
could  feel  sure  that  you  were  not  in  the  least 
jealous  of  m}^  great  grand-father  for  marrying 
your  sweetheart.  May  I  tell  my  great  grand- 
mother's picture  when  I  go  to  my  room  that 
you  quite  forgive  her  for  proving  false  to 
you?" 

Will  the  reader  believe  it,  this  coquettish 
quip,  whether  the  speaker  herself  had  any 
idea  of  it  or  not,  actually  touched  and  with 
the  touching  cured  a  preposterous  ache  of 
something  hke  jealousy  which  I  had  been 
vaguely    conscious   of  ever  since  Mrs.    Leete 


432  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

had  told  me  of  Edith  Bartlett's  marriage. 
Even  while  I  had  been  holding  Edith  Bart- 
lett's great  grand-daughter  in  my  arms,  I  had 
not,  till  this  moment,  so  illogical  are  some  of 
our  feelings,  distinctly  realized  that  but  for 
that  marriaore  I  could  not  have  done  so.  The 
absurdity  of  this  frame  of  mind  could  only 
be  equalled  by  the  abruptness  with  which  it 
dissolved  as  Edith's  roguish  query  cleared  the 
fog  from  m}'  perceptions.  I  laughed  as  I 
kissed  her. 

"You  may  assure  her  of  my  entire  forgive- 
ness," I  said,  "  althoucrh  if  it  had  been  anv 
man  but  your  great-grandfather  whom  she 
married,  it  w^ould  have  been  a  very  different 
matter." 

On  reachinir  mv  chamber  that  nio^ht  I  did 
not  open  the  musical  telephone  that  I  might  be 
lulled  to  sleep  with  soothing  tunes,  as  had  be- 
come my  habit.  For  once  my  thoughts  made 
better  music  than  even  twentieth  century  or- 
chestras discourse,  and  it  held  me  enchanted 
till  well  toward  morning,  when  I  fell  asleep. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  433 


CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

"  TT'S  a  little  after  the  time  you  told  me  to 
"*•  wake  you,  sir.  You  did  not  come  out 
of  it  as  quick  as  common,  sir." 

The  voice  was  the  voice  of  my  man  Sawyer. 
I  started  bolt  upright  in  bed  and  stared  around. 
I  w^as  in  my  underground  chamber.  The  mel- 
low light  of  the  lamp  wdiich  always  burned 
in  the  room  w^hen  I  occupied  it,  illumined  the 
familiar  walls  and  furnishings.  By  my  bed- 
side, wdth  the  glass  of  sherry  in  his  hand  wdiich 
Dr.  Pillsbury  prescribed  on  first  rousing  from 
a  mesmeric  sleep  by  way  of  awakening  the 
torpid  physical  functions,  stood  Sawyer. 

"Better  take  this  right  off,  sir,"  he  said,  as  I 
stared  blankly  at  him.  "You  look  kind  of 
flushed  like,  sir,  and  you  need  it." 

I  tossed  off  the  liquor  and  began  to  realize 
what  had  happened  to  me.     It  was,  of  course. 


434  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

very  plain.  x\ll  that  about  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury had  been  a  dream.  I  had  but  dreamed 
of  that  enhghtened  and  care-free  race  of  men 
and  their  ingeniously  simple  institutions,  of 
the  glorious  new  Boston  with  its  domes  and 
pinnacles,  its  gardens  and  fountains,  and  its 
universal  reign  of  comfort.  The  amJable  fam- 
ily which  I  had  learned  to  knov.'  so  well,  my 
genial  host  and  JMentor,  Dr.  Leete,  his  wdfe, 
and  their  daughter,  the  second  and  more  beau- 
teous Edith,  my  betrothed,  these,  too,  had 
l;een  but  filaments  of  a  vision. 

For  a  considerable  time  I  remained  in 
the  attitude  in  which  this  conviction  had  come 
over  me,  sitting  up  in  bed  gazing  at  vacancy, 
absorbed  in  recalling  the  scenes  and  incidents 
of  my  fantastic  appearance.  Sawyer,  alarmed 
at  my  looks,  was  meanwhile  anxiously  inquir- 
ing what  was  the  matter  with  me.  Roused  at 
length  by  his  importunities  to  a  recognition  of 
my  surroundings,  I  pulled  m3-self  together 
with  an  effort  and  assured  the  faithful  fellow 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  435 

that  I  was  all  right.  "  I  have  had  an  extraor- 
dinary dream,  that's  all,  Sawyer,"  I  said,  "a 
most-ex-traor-dinary-dream." 

I  dressed  in  a  mechanical  way,  feeling  light- 
headed and  oddly  uncertain  of  myself,  and  sat 
down  to  the  coffee  and  rolls  which  Sawyer  was 
in  the  habit  of  providing  for  my  refreshment 
before  I  left  the  house.  The  morning  news- 
paper lay  by  my  plate,  I  took  it  up,  and  my 
eye  fell  on  the  date  May  31,  1887.  I  had 
known,  of  course,  from  the  moment  I  opened 
my  eyes  that  my  long  and  detailed  experience 
in  another  century  had  been  a  dream,  and  yet 
it  was  startling  to  have  it  so  conclusively 
demonstrated  that  the  v/orld  was  but  a  few 
hours  older  than  when  1  had  lain  down  to  sleep. 

Glancino;  at  the  table  of  contents  at  the  head 
of  the  paper  which  reviewed  the  news  of  the 
morning,  I  read  the  following  summary : 

"Foreign  i\FFAiRS. — ^The  impending  war 
between  France  and  Germany.     The  French 


436  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

Chambers  asked  for  new  militar}^  credits  to 
meet  German}' 's  increase  of  her  army.  Prob- 
abihty  that  all  Europe  will  be  involved  in  case 
of  war.  —  Great  suffering  among  the  unem- 
ploj'ed  in  London.  They  demand  work. 
Monster  demonstration  to  be  made.  The 
authorities  uneasy.  —  Great  strikes  in  Bel- 
gium. The  government  preparing  to  repress 
outbreaks.  Shockin^:  facts  in  re^^ard  to  the 
employment  of  girls  in  Belgian  coal  mines.  — 
Wholesale  evictions  in-  Ireland. 

"Home  Affairs.  — The  epidemic  of  fraud 
unchecked.  Embezzlement  of  half  a  million 
in  New  York.  —  Misappropriation  of  a  trust 
fund  by  executors.  Orphans  left  penniless.  — 
Clever  system  of  thefts  by  a  bank  teller ; 
$50,000  gone. — The  coal  barons  decide  to 
advance  the  price  of  coal  and  reduce  produc- 
tion. —  Speculators  engineering  a  great  wheat 
corner  at  Chicago.  —  A  clique  forcing  up  the 
price  of  coffee.  —  Enormous  land-grabs  of 
Western  syndicates.  —  Revelations  of  shock- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  437 

ing  corruption  among  Chicago  officials.  Sys- 
tematic bribery. — The  trials  of  the  Boodle 
aldermen  to  go  on  at  New  York.  —  Large 
failures  of  business  houses.  Fears  of  a  busi- 
ness crisis. — A  large  grist  of  burglaries  and 
larcenies.  — A  woman  murdered  in  cold  blood 
for  her  money  at  New  Haven.  —  A  house- 
holder shot  by  a  burglar  in  this  city  last  night. 
—  A  man  shoots  himself  in  V/orcester  because 
he  could  not  get  work.  A  large  family  left 
destitute.  —  An  aged  couple  in  New  Jersey 
commit  suicide  rather  than  go  to  the  poor- 
house. —  Pitiable  destitution  among  the  women 
wage-workers  in  the  great  cities.  —  Startling 
growth  of  illiteracy  in  Massachusetts. — More 
insane  asylums  wanted.  —  Decoration  Day 
addresses.  Professor  Brown's  oration  on  the 
moral  grandeur  of  nineteenth  century  ciyili- 
zation." 

It   was    indeed    the    nineteenth    ceritur}^  to 
which  I  had  awaked ;  there  could  be  no  kind 


438  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

of  doubt  about  tbat.  Its  complete  microcosm 
this  sumi:iary  of  the  day's  news  had  presented, 
even  to  that  last  unmistakable  touch  of  fatuous 
self-complacency.  Coming  after  such  a  danni- 
in^■  indictment  of  the  a^re  as  that  one  dav's 
chronicle  of  world-wide  bloodshed,  greed  and 
tyranny,  was  a  bit  of  cynicism  worthy  of  iMe- 
phistopheles,  and  yet  of  all  whose  eyes  it  had 
met  this  morning  I  was,  perhaps,  the  only  one 
wlio  perceived  the  cynicism,  and  but  yesterday 
I  should  have  perceived  it  no  more  than  tlie 
others.  That  strange  dream  it  was  which  had 
made  all  the  difference.  For  I  know  not  how 
long  I  forgot  my  surroundings  after  this,  and 
was  again  in  fancy  moving  in  that  vivid  dream- 
world, in  that  glorious  city,  with  its  homes  of 
simple  comfort  and  its  gorgeous  public  pal- 
aces. Around  me  were  again  laces  unmarred 
by  arrogance  or  servility,  by  envy  or  greed, 
by  anxious  care  or  feverish  ambition,  and 
stately  forms  of  men  and  women  wdio  had 
never  known  fear  of  a  fellow  man  or  depended 


LOOKING   BACKWARD,  439 

on  his  favor,  but  always,  in  the  words  of  that 
sermon  which  still  rang  in  my  ears,  had 
"  stood  up  straight  before  God." 

With  a  profound  sigh  and  a  sense  of  irrepara- 
ble loss,  not  the  less  poignant  that  it  was  a  loss 
of  what  had  never  really  been,  I  roused  at  last 
from  my  revery,  and  soon  after  left  the  house. 

A  dozen  times  between  my  door  and  Wash- 
ington street  I  had  to  stop  and  pull  myself  to- 
gether, such  power  had  been  in  that  vision  of 
the  Boston  of  the  future  to  make  the  real 
Boston  strange.  The  squalor  and  malodor- 
ousness  of  the  town  struck  me,  from  the  mo- 
ment I  stood  upon  the  street,  as  facts  I  had 
never  before  observed.  But  yesterday,  more- 
over, it  had  seemed  quite  a  matter  of  course  that 
some  of  my  fellow  citizens  should  wear  silks, 
and  others  rags,  that  some  should  look  well 
fed,  and  others  hungry.  Now  on  the  contrarv 
the  glaring  disparities  in  the  dress  and  condi- 
tion of  the  men  and  women  who  brushed 
each  other   on  the  sidewalks  shocked   me  at 


440  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

every  step,  and  3'et  more  the  entire  indifference 
which  the  prosperous  showed  to  the  phght  of 
the  unfortunate.  Were  these  human  beings, 
who  could  behold  the  wretchedness  of  their 
fellows  without  so  much  as  a  change  of  coun- 
tenance? And  yet,  all  the  while,  I  knew  well 
that  it  was  I  who  had  changed,  and  not  my 
contemporaries.  I  had  dreamed  of  a  city 
whose  people  fared  all  alike  as  children  of  one 
family  and  were  one  another's  keepers  in  all 
things. 

Another  feature  of  the  real  Boston  which 
assumed  the  extraordinar}^  effect  of  strange- 
ness that  marks  familiar  things  seen  in  a 
new  light,  was  the  prevalence  of  advertis- 
ing. There  had  been  no  personal  advertis- 
ing in  the  Boston  of  the  twentieth  century, 
because  there  was  no  need  of  any,  but  here 
the  w^alls  of  the  buildings,  the  windows,  the 
broadsides  of  the  newspapers  in  every  hand, 
the  very  pavements,  everything  in  fact  in 
sight,  save  the   sky,  were    covered   wdth   the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  44I 

appeals  of  individuals  who  sought,  under 
innumerable  pretexts,  to  attract  the  contribu- 
tions of  others  to  their  support.  However  the 
wording  might  vary,  the  tenor  of  all  these  ap- 
peals was  the  same : 

"Help  John  Jones.  Never  mind  the  rest. 
They  are  frauds.  I,  John  Jones,  am  the  right 
one.  Buy  of  me.  Employ  me.  Visit  me. 
Hear  me,  John  Jones.  Look  at  me.  Make 
no  mistake,  John  Jones  is  the  man  and  nobody 
else.  Let  the  rest  starve,  but  for  God's  sake 
remember  John  Jones  !  " 

Whether  the  pathos,  or  the  moral  repulsive- 
ness  of  the  spectacle,  most  impressed  me,  so 
suddenly  become  a  stranger  in  my  own  city,  I 
know  not.  Wretched  men,  I  was  moved  to 
cry,  who,  because  they  will  not  learn  to  be 
helpers  of  one  another,  are  doomed  to  be  beg- 
gars of  one  another  from  the  least  to  the 
greatest !  This  horrible  babel  of  shameless 
self-assertion  and  mutual  depreciation,  this 
stunning  clamor  of  conflicting  boasts,  appeals, 


442  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

and  adjurations,  this  stupendous  system  of 
brazen  beggary,  what  was  it  all  but  the  neces- 
sity of  a  society  in  which  the  opportunity  to 
serve  the  world  according  to  his  gifts,  instead 
of  being  secured  to  every  man  as  the  first 
object  of  social  organization,  had  to  be  fought 
for! 

I  reached  Washincrton  street  at  the  busiest 
point,  and  there  I  stood  and  laughed  aloud,  to 
the  scandal  of  the  passers  by.  For  my  life  I 
could  not  have  helped  it,  with  such  a  mad 
humor  was  I  moved  at  sight  of  the  intermina- 
ble rows  of  stores  on  either  side,  up  and  down 
the  street  so  far  as  I  could  see,  scores  of  them, 
to  make  the  spectacle  more  utterly  preposter- 
ous, within  a  stone's  throve  devoted  to  selling  the 
same  sort  of  goods.  Stores  !  stores  !  stores  ! 
miles  of  stores  !  ten  thousand  stores  to  distrib- 
ute the  goods  needed  by  this  one  city,  which  in 
my  dream  had  been  supplied  with  all  things 
from  a  single  warehouse,  as  they  were  ordered 
through  one  great  store  in  every  quarter  v/here 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  443 

the    buyer,   without   waste    of  tune   or    labor, 
found  under  one  roof  the  world's  assortment  in 
whatever  line  he  desired.     There  the  labor  of 
distribution  had  been  so  slight  as  to  add  but  a 
scarcely    perceptible    fraction    to   the    cost    of 
commodities  to  the  user.     The  cost  of  produc- 
don  was  virtually  all  he  paid.     But  here  the 
mere  distribudon  of  the  goods,  their  handling 
alone,  added  a  fourth,  a  third,  a  half  and  more, 
to  the  cost.       All  these    ten    thousand    plants 
must  be   paid   for,   their  rent,   their    stafts   of 
superintendence,  their    platoons  of  salesmen, 
their  ten  thousand  sets  of  accountants,  jobbers, 
and  business  dependents,  with  all  they  spent 
in    advertising    themselves    and    lighting    one 
another,  and  the  consumers  must  do  the  pay- 
ing.    What  a  famous  process  for  beggaring  a 
nation  ! 

Were  these  serious  men  I  saw  about  me,  or 
children,  who  did  their  business  on  such  a 
plan?  Could  they  be  reasoning  beings  who 
did    not  see    the   folly  which,  when  the  pro- 


444  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

duct  is  made  and  ready  for  use,  wastes  so 
much  of  it  in  getting  it  to  the  user?  If  peo- 
ple eat  with  a  spoon  that  leaks  half  its  con- 
tents between  bowl  and  lip,  are  they  not 
likely  to  go  hungry? 

I  had  passed  through  Washington  street 
thousands  of  times  before  and  viewed  the 
ways  of  those  who  sold  merchandise,  but  my 
curiosity  concerning  them  was  as  if  I  liad 
never  gone  b}-  their  way  before.  I  took 
wondering  note  of  the  show  window^s  of  the 
stores,  filled  with  goods  arranged  with  a 
wealth  of  pains  and  artistic  device  to  attract 
the  eye.  I  saw  the  throngs  of  ladies  looking 
in,  and  the  proprietors  eagerly  watching  the 
effect  of  the  bait.  I  went  within  and  noted 
the  hawk-eyed  floor-walker  watching  for  busi- 
ness, overlooking  the  clerks,  keeping  them 
up  to  their  task  of  inducing  the  customers  to 
buy,  buy,  buy  for  money  if  the}'  had  it,  for 
credit  if  they  had  it  not,  to  buy  what  they 
wanted  not,  more  than  they  wanted,  what  they 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  445 

could    not    afford.     At  times    I    momentarily 
lost  the  clew  and  was  confused  by  the  sight. 
Why    this    effort    to    induce    people    to    buy? 
Surely  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  legiti- 
mate business  of  distribudng  products  to  those 
who  needed  them.     Surely  it  was  the  sheer- 
est waste  to  force  upon  people  what  they  did 
not  want,  but  what  might  be  useful  to  another. 
The  nadon  was  so  much  the  poorer  for  every 
such  achievement.      What  were  these   clerks 
thinking  of?      Then  I   would  remember  that 
they  were  not  acting  as  distributors  like  those 
in  the  store  I  had  visited  in  the  dream  Boston. 
They  were  not  serving  the  public  interest,  but 
their  immediate  personal  interest,  and  it  was 
nothing  to  them  what  the   ultimate   effect  of 
their  course  on  the  general  prosperity  might 
be,  if  but  they  increased  their  own  hoard,  for 
these  goods  were  their  own  and  the  more  they 
sold    and  the    more    they    got    for    them,   the 
greater   their    gain.     The    more  wasteful   the 
people  were,  the  more  ardcles   they  did    not 


44^  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

want  which  they  could  be  induced  to  buy,  the 
better  for  these  sellers.  To  encourage  prodi- 
gality was  the  express  aim  of  the  ten  thousand 
stores  of  Boston. 

Nor  were  these  storekeepers  and  clerks  a 
whit  worse  men  than  any  others  in  Boston. 
They  must  earn  a  living  and  support  their 
families,  and  how  were  they  to  find  a  trade  to 
do  it  by  which  did  not  necessitate  placing 
their  individual  interests  before  those  of  others 
and  that  of  all  ?  They  could  not  be  asked  to 
starve  while  they  waited  for  an  order  of  things 
such  as  I  had  seen  in  my  dream,  in  which  the 
interest  of  each  and  that  of  all  were  identical. 
But,  God  in  lieaven  I  what  wonder,  under  such 
a  system  as  this  about  me,  what  wonder  that 
the  city  was  so  shabby,  and  the  people  so 
meanly  dressed,  and  so  many  of  them  ragged 
and  hungry. 

Some  time  after  this  it  was  that  I  drifted 
over  into  South  Boston  and  found  myself 
among    the  manufacturing  establishments.     I 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  447 

had  been  in  this  quarter  of  the  city  a  hundred 
times  before  just  as  I  had  been  on  Washington 
street,  but  here,  as  well  as  there,  I  now  first 
perceived  the  true  significance  of  what  I  wit- 
nessed. Formerly  I  had  taken  pride  in  the 
fact  that,  by  actual  count,  Boston  had  some  four 
thousand  independent  manufacturing  estab- 
lishments, but  in  this  very  multiplicity  and 
independence  I  recognized  now  the  secret  of 
the  insignificant  total  product  of  their  Indus- 
try. 

If  Washington  street  had  been  like  a  lane 
in  Bedlam,  this  was  a  spectacle  as  much  more 
melancholy  as  production  is  a  more  vital  func- 
tion than  distribution.  For  not  onh^  were 
these  four  thousand  establishments  not  work- 
ing in  concert,  and  for  that  reason  alone  oper- 
ating at  prodigious  disadvantage,  but,  as  if  this 
did  not  involve  a  sufliciently  disastrous  loss  of 
power,  they  were  using  their  utmost  skill  to 
frustrate  one  another's  efforts,  praying  by 
night  and  working  by  day  for  the  destruction 
of  one  another's  enterprises. 


448  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

The  roar  and  rattle  of  wheels  and  hammers 
resounding  from  every  side  was  not  the  hum  of 
a  peaceful  industry,  but  the  clangor  of  swords 
wielded  by  foemen.  These  mills  and  shops 
were  so  many  forts,  each  under  its  own  flag,  its 
guns  trained  on  the  mills  and  shops  about 
it,  and  its  sappers  busy  below,  undermining 
them. 

Within  each  one  of  these  forts  the  strictest 
organization  of  industry  was  insisted  on ;  the 
separate  gangs  worked  under  a  single  central 
authorit}'.  No  interference  and  no  duplicating 
of  work  were  permitted.  Each  had  his  allotted 
task,  and  none  were  idle.  By  what  hiatus  in 
the  logical  faculty,  by  what  lost  link  of  reason- 
ing account,  then,  for  the  failure  to  recognize 
the  necessity  of  applying  the  same  principle 
to  the  organization  of  the  national  industries  as 
a  whole,  to  see  that  if  lack  of  organization 
could  impair  the  efficiency  of  a  shop,  it  must 
have  effects  as  much  more  disastrous  in  disa- 
bling the  industries  of  the  nation   at  large  as 


LOOKING    BACKWARD.  449 

the  latter  are  vaster  in  volume  and  more  com- 
plex in  the  relationship  of  their  parts. 

People  would  be  prompt  enough  to  ridicule 
an  arm}-  in  which  there  were  neither  compa- 
nies, battalions,  regiments,  brigades,  divisions, 
or  armv  corps, — no  unit  of  organization,  in 
fact,  larger  than  the  corporal's  squad,  with  no 
officer  higher  than  a  corporal,  and  all  the  cor- 
porals equal  in  authority.  And  3'et  just  such 
an  army  were  the  manufacturing  industries  of 
nineteenth  century  Boston,  an  army  of  four 
thousand  independent  squads  led  by  four  thou- 
sand independent  corporals,  each  with  a  sep- 
arate plan  of  campaign. 

Knots  of  idle  men  were  to  be  seen  here  and 
there  on  every  side,  some  idle  because  they 
could  find  no  work  at  any  price,  others  be- 
cause they  could  not  get  what  they  thought  a 
fair  price. 

I  accosted  some  of  the  latter  and  they  told 
me  their  grievances.  It  was  very  little  com- 
fort I  could  give  them.     ''  I  am  sorry  for  you," 


4SO  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

I  said.  "You  get  little  enough,  certainl}-,  and 
yet  the  wonder  to  me  is,  not  that  industries 
conducted  as  these  are  do  not  pay  you  living 
wages,  but  that  they  are  able  to  pay  you  any 
wages  at  all." 

.  Making  my  way  back  again  after  this  to  the 
peninsular  city,  toward  three  o'clock  I  stood 
on  State  street,  staring  as  if  I  had  never  seen 
them  before,  at  the  banks  and  brokers'  offices, 
and  other  financial  institutions,  of  which  there 
had  been  in  the  State  street  of  my  vision  no 
vestige.  Business  men,  confidential  clerks, 
and  errand  boys,  v/ere  thronging  in  and  out 
of  tlie  banks,  for  it  wanted  but  a  few  minutes 
of  the  closing  hour.  Opposite  me  was  the 
bank  w^here  I  did  business,  and  presently  I 
crossed  the  street,  and,  going  in  with  the 
crowd,  stood  in  a  recess  of  the  wall  looking 
on  at  the  armv  of  clerks  handlinir  monev,  and 
the  cues  of  depositors  at  the  tellers'  windows. 
An  old  gentleman  \\hom  I  knew,  a  director 
of  the  bank,  passing  me  and  observmg  my 
contemplative  attitude,  stopped  a  moment. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  4SI 

"Interesting  sight,  isn't  it,  INIr.  West,"  he 
said.  "  Wonderful  piece  of  mechanism  ;  I  find 
it  so,  myself.  I  like  sometimes  to  stand  and 
look  on  at  it  just  as  you  are  doing.  It's  a 
poem,  sir,  a  poem,  that's  what  I  call  it.  Did 
you  ever  think,  Mr.  West,  that  the  bank  is  the 
heart  of  the  business  system?  From  it  and  to 
it,  in  endless  flux  and  reflux,  the  life  blood 
goes.  It  is  flowing  in  now.  It  will  flow  out 
again  in  the  morning ;  "  and  pleased  with  his 
little  conceit,  the  old  man  passed  on  smihng. 

Yesterday  I  should  have  considered  the 
simile  apt  enough,  but  since  then  I  had  visited 
a  world  incomparably  more  affluent  than  this, 
in  which  money  was  unknown  and  without 
conceivable  use.  I  had  learned  that  it  had  a 
use  in  the  world  around  me  only  because  the 
work  of  producing  the  nation's  livelihood,  in- 
stead of  being  regarded  as  the  most  strictly 
public  and  common  of  all  concerns,  and  as 
such  conducted  by  the  nation,  w^as  abandoned 
to  the  hap-hazard  efforts  of  individuals.     This 


452  I.OOKING  BACKWARD. 

oricrinal  mistake  necessitated  endless  exchano-es 
to  bring  about  any  sort  of  general  distribution 
of  products.  These  exclianges  money  effected 
—  how  equitabl}^  might  be  seen  in  a  walk 
from  the  tenement  house  districts  to  the  Back 
Ba}^  —  at  the  cost  of  an  army  of  men  taken 
from  productive  labor  to  manage  it,  with  con- 
stant ruinous  break  downs  of  its  machinery, 
and  a  generally  debauching  influence  on  man- 
kind which  had  justified  its  description,  from 
ancient  time,  as  the  "root  of  all  evil." 

Alas  for  the  poor  old  bank  director  with  his 
poem  !  He  had  mistaken  the  throbbing  of  an 
abscess  for  the  beating  of  the  heart.  What  he 
called  "a  wonderful  piece  of  mechanism,"  was 
an  imperfect  device  to  remedy  an  unnecessary 
defect,  the  clumsy  crutch  of  a  self-made  crip- 
ple. 

After  the  banks  had  closed  I  wandered  aim- 
lessly about  the  business  quarter  for  an  hour 
or  two,  and  later  sat  a  while  on  one  of  the 
benches  of  the  Common,  finding   an  interest 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  453 

merely  in  watching  the  throngs  that  passed, 
such  as  one  has  in  studying  the  populace  of 
a  foreign  city,  so  strange  since  yesterda}^  had 
my  fellow  citizens  and  their  ways  become  to  me. 
For  thirty  years  I  had  lived  among  them,  and 
yet  I  seemed  to  have  never  noted  before  how 
drawn  and  anxious  were  their  faces,  of  the  rich 
as  of  the  poor,  the  refined,  acute  faces  of  the 
educated  as  well  as  the  dull  masks  of  the  icr- 
norant.     And  well   it  might  be  so,  for  I  saw 
now,  as  never  before  I  had  seen  so  plainly,  that 
each  as  he  walked  constantly  turned  to  catch 
the  whispers  of  a  spectre  at  his  ear,  the  spectre 
of  Uncertainty.    "  Do  your  work  never  so  well," 
the  spectre  was  whispering,  — "rise  early  and 
toil  till  late,  rob  cunningly  or  serve  faithfully, 
you    shall   never   know  security.      Rich   you 
may  be  now  and  still  come  to  poverty  at  last. 
Leave  never  so  much  wealth  to  your  children, 
you   cannot  buy  the  assurance  that  your  son 
may  not  be  the  servant  of  your  servant,  or  that 
your  daughter  will  not  have  to  sell  herself  for 
bread. 


454  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

A  man  passing  by  thrust  an  advertising  card 
in  my  hand,  which  set  forth  the  merits  of  some 
new  scheme  of  Hfe  insurance.  The  incident 
reminded  me  of  the  only  device,  pathetic  in  its 
admission  of  the  universal  need  it  so  poorly 
supplied,  which  offered  these  tired  and  hunted 
men  and  women  even  a  partial  protection  from 
uncertainty.  By  this  means,  those  already 
well-to-do,  I  remembered,  might  purchase  a 
precarious  confidence  that  after  their  death 
their  loved  ones  would  not,  for  a  while  at  least, 
be  trampled  under  the  feet  of  men.  But  this 
was  all,  and  this  was  only  for  those  who  could 
pay  well  for  it.  What  idea  was  possible  to  these 
wretched  dwellers  in  the  land  of  Ishmael, 
where  every  man's  hand  was  against  each  and 
the  hand  of  each  against  every  other,  of  true 
life  insurance  as  I  had  seen  it  among  the  peo- 
ple of  that  dream  land,  each  of  whom,  by  vir- 
tue merely  of  his  membership  in  the  national 
family,  was  guaranteed  against  need  of  any 
sort,  by  a  policy  underwritten  by  one  hundred 
million  fellow  countrymen. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  4S5 

Some  time  after  this  it  was  tliat  I  recall  a 
glimpse  of  myself  standing  on  the  steps  of  a 
building  on  Tremont  street,  looking  at  a  mili- 
tary parade.  A  regiment  was  passing.  It 
was  the  first  sight  in  that  dreary  day  which 
had  inspired  me  with  any  other  emotions  than 
wondering  pity  and  amazement.  Here  at  last 
were  order  and  reason,  an  exhibition  of  what 
intelligent  co-operation  can  accomplish.  The 
people  who  stood  looking  on  with  kindling 
faces,  —  could  it  be  that  the  sight  had  for  them 
no  more  than  but  a  spectacular  interest?  Could 
they  fail  to  see  that  it  was  their  perfect  concert 
of  action,  their  organization  under  one  control, 
which  made  these  men  the  tremendous  engine 
they  were,  able  to  vanquish  a  mob  ten  times 
as  numerous?  Seeing  this  so  plainly,  could 
they  fail  to  compare  the  scientific  manner 
in  which  the  nation  went  to  war  with  the 
unscientific  manner  in  which  it  went  to  work? 
Would  they  not  query  since  what  time  the 
killing  of  men  had  been  a  task  so  much  more 


45^  LOOKING  BACKWARt}. 

important  than  feeding  and  clothing  them,  that 
a  trained  army  should  be  deemed  alone  ade- 
quate to  the  former,  while  the  latter  was  left  to 
a  mob? 

It  was  now  toward  nightfall,  and  the  streets 
were  thronc^ed  wnth  the  workers  from  the 
stores,  the  shops,  and  mills.  Carried  along 
with  the  stronger  part  of  the  current,  I  found 
m}'self,  as  it  began  to  grow  dark,  in  the  midst 
of  a  scene  of  squalor  and  human  degradation 
such  as  only  the  South  Cove  tenement  district 
could  present.  I  had  seen  the  mad  wasting 
of  human  labor ;  here  I  saw  in  direst  shape 
tlie  want  that  waste  had  bred. 

From  the  black  doorwa3's  and  windows  of 
the  rookeries  on  every  side  came  gusts  of  fetid 
air.  The  streets  and  alleys  reeked  with  the 
effluvia  of  a  slave  ship's  between-decks.  As  I 
passed  I  had  glimpses  within  of  pale  babies 
gasping  out  their  lives  amid  sultry  stenches, 
of  hopeless  faced  women  deformed  by  hard- 
ship, retaining   of  womanhood   no    trait    save 


LOOKING  BACKWARD,  457 

weakness,  while  from  the  windows  leered  girls 
with  brows  of  brass.  Like  the  starving  bands 
of  mongrel  curs  that  infest  the  streets  of  Mos- 
lem towns,  swarms  of  half  clad  brutalized  chil- 
dren lilled  the  air  with  shrieks  and  curses  as 
they  fought  and  tumbled  among  the  garbage 
that  littered  the  court  3^ards. 

There  was  nothing  in  all  this  that  was  new 
to  me.  Often  had  I  passed  through  this  part 
of  the  city  and  witnessed  its  sights  with  feel- 
ings of  disgust  mingled  with  a  certain  philo- 
sophical wonder  at  the  extremities  mortals  will 
endure  and  still  cling  to  life.  But  not  alone 
as  regarded  the  economical  follies  of  this  age, 
but  equally  as  touched  its  moral  abominations, 
scales  had  fallen  from  m}-  eyes  since  that 
vision  of  another  century.  No  more  did  I 
look  upon  the  woeful  dwellers  in  this  inferno 
with  a  callous  curiosity  as  creatures  scarcely 
human.  I  saw  in  them  my  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, my  parents,  my  children,  flesh  of  my 
flesh,  blood  of  my  blood.     The  festering  mass 


458  LOOKING  BACKWARD, 

of  human  wretchedness  about  me  offended 
not  now  m}'  senses  merely,  but  pierced  my 
heart  hke  a  knife,  so  that  I  could  not  repress 
sighs  and  groans.  I  not  only  saw  but  felt  in 
my  body  all  that  I  saw. 

Presently,  too,  as  I  observed  the  wretched 
beings  about  me  more  closely,  I  perceived  that 
they  were  all  quite  dead.  Their  bodies  were 
so  many  living  sepulchres.  On  each  brutal 
brow  was  plainly  written  the  hie  jacct  of  a  soul 
dead  within. 

As  I  looked,  horror  struck,  from  one  death's 
head  to  another,  I  was  affected  by  a  singular 
hallucination.  Like  a  wavering  translucent 
spirit  face  superimposed  upon  each  of  these 
brutish  masks,  I  saw  the  ideal,  the  possible  face 
that  would  have  been  the  actual  if  mind  and 
soul  had  lived.  It  was  not  till  I  was  aware  of 
these  ghostly  faces  and  of  the  reproach  that 
could  not  be  gainsaid  which  was  in  their  eyes, 
that  the  full  piteousness  of  the  ruin  that  had 
been  wrought,  was    revealed    to    me.     I   was 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  459 

moved  with  contrition  as  with  a  strong  agony, 
for  I  had  been  one  of  those  who  had  endured 
that  these  things  should  be.  I  had  been  one 
of  those  who,  vv^ell  knowing  that  they  were, 
had  not  desired  to  hear  or  be  compelled  to 
think  much  of  them,  but  had  gone  on  as  if 
they  were  not,  seeking  my  own  pleasure  and 
profit.  Therefore  now  I  found  upon  my  gar- 
ments the  blood  of  this  great  multitude  of 
strangled  souls  of  mj-  brothers.  The  voice  of 
their  blood  cried  out  against  me  from  the 
ground.  Every  stone  of  the  reeking  pave- 
ments, every  brick  of  the  pestilential  rook- 
eries found  a  tongue  and  called  after  me  as  I 
fled  :  What  hast  thou  done  with  thy  brother 
Abel? 

I  have  no  clear  recollection  of  anything 
after  this  till  I  found  myself  standing  on  the 
carved  stone  steps  of  the  magnificent  home 
of  my  betrothed  in  Commonwealth  avenue. 
Amid  the  tumult  of  my  thoughts  that  day,  I 
had   scarcely   once  thought  of   her,   but  now 


460  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

obeying  some  unconscious  impulse  my  feet 
had  found  the  familiar  way  to  her  door.  I 
wafj  told  that  the  family  were  at  dinner,  but 
WT/rd  was  sent  out  that  I  should  join  them  at 
table.  Besides  the  familj^,  I  found  several 
guests  present,  all  known  to  me.  The  table 
glittered  with  plate  and  costly  china.  The 
ladies  Vv^ere  sumptuously  dressed  and  wore 
the  jewels  of  queens.  The  scene  was  one  of 
costly  elegance  and  lavish  luxury.  The  com- 
pany was  in  excellent  spirits,  and  there  was 
plentiful  laughter  and  a  running  fire  of  jests. 

To  me  it  was  as  if,  in  wandering  through 
the  place  of  doom,  my  blood  turned  to  tears 
by  its  sights,  and  m}^  spirit  attuned  to  sorrow, 
pity  and  despair,  I  had  happened  in  some 
glade  upon  a  merry  party  of  roisterers.  I 
sat  in  silence  until  Edith  began  to  rally  me 
upon  my  sombre  looks.  What  ailed  me? 
The  others  presentl}^  joined  in  the  playful  as- 
sault and  I  became  a  target  for  quips  and  jests. 
Where  had  I  been,  and  what  had  I  seen  to 
make  such  a  dull  fellow  of  me  ? 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  46 1 

"I  have  been   in   Golgotha,"  at  last  I  an- 
swered.    "  I  have  seen  humanity  hanging  on  a 
cross.     Do  none  of  you  know  what  sights  the 
sun  and  stars  look  down  on  in  this  city,  that  you 
can  think  and  talk  of  anything  else?     Do  you 
not  know  that  close  to  your  doors  a  great  multi- 
tude of  men  and  women,  flesh  of  your  flesh, 
live   lives   that   are   one   agony  from    birth    to 
death?     Listen!    their  dwellincrs   are  so   near 
that  if  you  hush  your  laughter  you  will  hear 
their  grievous  voices,  the  piteous  crying  of  the 
little  ones  that  suckle  poverty,  the  hoarse  curses 
of  men  sodden  in  misery,  turned  half  way  back 
to  brutes,  the  chaflering  of  an  army  of  women 
selling  themselves  for  bread.    With  what  have 
you  stopped  your  ears  that  you  do  not  hear 
these    doleful    sounds?     For    me   I    can   hear 
nothing  else." 

Silence  followed  my  words.  A  passion  of 
pity  had  shaken  me  as  I  spoke,  but  when  I 
looked  around  upon  the  com.pany,  I  saw  that, 
far  from  being  stirred  as  I  was,  their  faces  ex- 


462  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

pressed  a  cold  and  hard  astonishment,  min- 
gled in  Edith's  with  extreme  mortification, 
in  her  father's  with  anger.  The  ladies  were 
exchanging  scandalized  looks,  while  one  of 
the  gentlemen  had  put  up  his  eye-glass  and 
was  studying  me  with  an  air  of  scientific  curi- 
osity. When  I  saw  that  things  which  were 
to  me  so  intolerable  moved  them  not  at  all, 
that  words  that  melted  my  heart  to  speak  had 
only  offended  them  with  the  speaker,  I  was  at 
first  stunned  and  then  overcome  with  a  des- 
perate sickness  and  faintness  at  the  heart. 
What  hope  was  there  for  the  wretched,  for  the 
world,  if  thoughtful  men  and  tender  women 
were  not  moved  by  things  like  these  !  Then 
I  bethought  myself  that  it  must  be  because  I 
had  not  spoken  aright.  No  doubt  I  had  put 
the  case  badly.  They  were  angry  because 
they  thought  I  was  berating  them,  when  God 
knew  I  was  merely  thinking  of  the  horror  of 
the  fact  without  any  attempt  to  assign  the  re- 
sponsibility for  it. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  463 

I  restrained  my  passion,  and  tried  to  speak 
calmly  and  logically  that  I  might  correct  this 
impression.  I  told  them  that  I  had  not  meant 
to  accuse  them,  as  if  they,  or  the  rich  in  gen- 
eral, were  responsible  for  the  misery  of  the 
world.  True  indeed  it  was  that  the  superflu- 
ity which  they  wasted  would,  otherwise  be- 
stowed, relieve  much  bitter  suffering.  These 
costly  viands,  these  rich  wines,  these  gorgeous 
fabrics  and  glistening  jewels  represented  the 
ransom  of  many  lives.  They  were  verily  not 
without  the  guiltiness  of  those  who  waste  in  a 
land  stricken  with  famine.  Nevertheless,  all 
the  waste  of  all  the  rich,  were  it  saved,  would 
go  but  a  little  way  to  cure  the  poverty  of  the 
world.  There  was  so  little  to  divide  that  even 
if  the  rich  went  share  and  share  with  the  poor, 
there  would  be  but  a  common  fare  of  crusts, 
albeit  made  very  sweet  then  by  brotherly  love. 

The  folly  of  men,  not  their  hard-heartedness, 
was  the  great  cause  of  the  world's  poverty.  It 
was  not  the  crime  of  man,  nor  of  any  class  of 


464  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

men,  that  made  the  race  so  miserable,  but  a  hid- 
eous, ghastly  mistake,  a  colossal  world-darken- 
ing blunder.  And  then  I  showed  them  how  four 
fifths  of  the  labor  of  men  was  utterly  w^asted 
by  the  mutual  warfare,  the  lack  of  organiza- 
tion and  concert  among  the  workers.  Seeking 
to  make  the  matter  very  plain,  I  instanced  the 
case  of  arid  lands  where  the  soil  yielded  the 
means  of  life  only  by  careful  use  of  the  water 
courses  for  irrigation.  I  showed  how^  in  such 
countries  it  was  counted  the  most  important 
function  of  the  government  to  see  that  the 
water  w^as  not  wasted  by  the  selfishness  or  ig- 
norance of  individuals,  since  otherwise  there 
would  be  famine.  To  this  end  its  use  was* 
strictly  regulated  and  S3^stematized,  and  indi- 
viduals of  their  mere  caprice  were  not  permitted 
to  dam  it  or  divert  it,  or  in  any  way  to  tamper 
with  it. 

The  labor  of  men,  I  explained,  was  the  fer- 
tilizing stream  which  alone  rendered  earth  hab- 
itable.   It  was  but  a  scanty  stream  at  best,  and 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  465 

its  use  required  to  be  regulated  by  a  system 
which  expended  every  drop  to  the  best  advan- 
tage, if  the  world  were  to  be  supported  in 
abundance.  But  how  far  from  an}'  system  was 
the  actual  practice  !  Every  man  wasted  the 
precious  fluid  as  he  wished,  animated  only  by 
the  equal  motives  of  saving  his  own  crop  and 
spoiling  his  neighbor's,  that  his  might  sell  the 
better.  What  with  greed  and  what  with  spite 
some  fields  were  flooded  while  others  were 
parched  and  half  the  water  ran  wholl}^  to 
waste.  In  such  a  land,  though  a  few  b}' 
strength  or  cunnincc  mio-ht  win  the  means  of 
luxury,  the  lot  of  the  great  mass  must  be  pov- 
erty, and  of  the  weak  and  ignorant  bitter  want 
and  perennial  famine. 

Let  but  the  famine-stricken  nation  assume 
the  function  it  had  neglected  and  regulate  for 
the  common  good  the  course  of  th  :  life-giving 
stream,  and  the  earth  would  bloom  like  one 
garden,  and  none  of  its  children  lack  any 
good  thing.     I  described  the  physical  felicity, 


466  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

mental  enlightenment,  and  moral  elevation 
which  would  then  attend  the  lives  of  all  men. 
With  fervency  I  spoke  of  that  new  world 
blessed  with  plenty,  purified  by  justice  and 
sweetened  by  brotherl}'  kindness,  the  w^orld  of 
which  I  had  indeed  but  dreamed,  but  which 
might  so  easily  be  made  real. 

But  when  I  had  expected  now  surely  the 
faces  around  me  to  light  up  with  emotions  akin 
to  mine,  they  grew  ever  more  dark,  angry,  and 
scornful.  Instead  of  enthusiasm,  the  ladies 
showed  only  aversion  and  dread,  while  the 
men  interrupted  me  with  shouts  of  reprobation 
and  contempt.  "  Madman  !  "  "  Pestilent  fel- 
low !  "  "  Fanatic  I"  ''  Enemy  of  society  !  "  were 
some  of  their  cries,  and  the  one  who  had  be- 
fore taken  his  eye-glass  to  me  exclaimed,  "  He 
says  we  are  to  have  no  more  poor.     Ha  !  Ha  !  " 

"  Put  the  fellow  out !  "  exclaimed  the  father 
of  my  betrothed,  and  at  the  signal  the  men 
sprang  from  their  chairs  and  advanced  upon 
m^e. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  467 

It  seemed  to  me  that  my  heart  would  burst 
with  the  anguish  of  finding  that  what  was  to 
m.e  so  plain  and  so  all-important,  was  to  them 
meaningless,  and  that  I  was  powerless  to 
make  it  other.  So  hot  had  been  my  heart 
that  I  had  thought  to  melt  an  iceberg  with  its 
glow,  only  to  find  at  last  the  overmastering 
chill  seizing  my  own  vitals.  It  was  not 
enmity  that  I  felt  toward  them  as  they  thronged 
me,  but  pity  only,  for  them  and  for  the  world. 

Though  despairing,  I  could  not  give  over. 
Still  I  strove  with  them.  Tears  poured  from 
my  eyes.  In  my  vehemence  I  became  inartic- 
ulate. I  panted,  I  sobbed,  I  groaned,  and  im- 
mediately afterward  found  myself  sitting  up- 
right in  bed  in  my  room  in  Dr.  Leete's  house, 
and  the  morning  sun  shining  through  the  open 
window  into  my  eyes.  I  was  gasping.  The 
tears  were  streaming  down  my  face,  and  I 
quivered  in  every  nerve. 

As  with  an  escaped  convict  who  dreams  that 
be  has  been  re-captured  and  brought  back  to 


468  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

his  dark  and  reeking  dungeon,  and  opens  his 
eyes  to  see  the  heaven's  vault  spread  above 
him,  so  it  was  with  me,  as  I  realized  that  my 
return  to  the  nineteenth  century  had  been  the 
dream,  and  my  presence  in  the  twentieth  was 
the  reality. 

The  cruel  sights  which  I  had  witnessed 
in  my  vision,  and  could  so  well  confirm  from 
the  experience  of  my  former  life,  though  they 
had,  alas  !  once  been,  and  must  in  the  retro- 
spect to  the  end  of  time  move  the  compassion- 
ate to  tears,  were,  God  be  thanked,  forever 
gone  b}'.  Long  ago  oppressor  and  oppressed, 
prophet  and  scorner,  had  been  dust.  For  gen- 
erations rich  and  poor  had  been  forgotten 
words. 

But  in  that  moment,  while  yet  I  mused  with 
unspeakable  thankfulness  upon  the  greatness 
of  the  W'Orld's  salvation,  and  my  privilege  in 
beholding  it,  tliere  suddenly  pierced  me  like  a 
knife  a  pang  of  shame,  remorse,  and  wonder- 
ing self-reproach,  that  bowed   my   head  upon 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  469 

my  breast  and  made  me  wish  the  grave  had 
hid  me  willi  my  fellows  from  the  sun.  For 
I  had  been  a  man  of  that  former  time.  What 
had  I  done  to  help  on  the  deliverance  whereat 
I  now  presumed  to  rejoice  ?  I  who  had  lived 
in  those  cruel,  insensate  da3's,  what  had  I  done 
to  bring  them  to  an  end?  I  had  been  every 
whit  as  indifferent  to  the  wretchedness  of  my 
brothers,  as  cynically  incredulous  of  better 
things,  as  besotted  a  worshipper  of  Chaos  and 
Old  Night,  as  any  of  my  fellows.  So  far  as 
my  personal  influence  went,  it  had  been  ex- 
erted rather  to  hinder  than  to  help  forward  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  race  which  was  even 
then  preparing.  What  right  had  I  to  hail  a 
salvation  which  reproached  me,  to  rejoice  in  a 
day  whose  dawning  I  had  mocked? 

"Better  for  you,  better  for  you,"  a  voice 
within  me  rang, ''  had  this  evil  dream  been  the 
reality,  and  this  fair  reality  the  dream  ;  better 
your  part  pleading  for  crucified  humanit}^  with 
a  scoffing  generation,  than  here,  drinking  of 
wells   you    digged    not,    and    eating   of  trees 


470  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

whose    husbandmen   you   stoned ;"     and   my 
spirit  answered,  "  Better,  truly."     • 

When  at  length  I  raised  my  bowed  head 
and  looked  forth  from  the  window,  Edith, 
fresh  as  the  morning,  had  come  into  the  gar- 
den and  was  gathering  flowers.  I  hastened 
to  descend  to  her.  Kneeling  before  her,  with 
my  face  in  the  dust,  I  confessed  with  tears  how 
little  was  my  worth  to  breathe  the  air  of  this 
golden  century,  and  how  infinitely  less  to  wear 
upon  my  breast  its  consummate  flower.  For- 
tunate is  he  who,  with  a  case  so  desperate  as 
mine,  finds  a  judge  so  merciful. 


THE    END. 


